


The Post-Burrow World

by CeleryThesis



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, HP: EWE, Post-Deathly Hallows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-09-14 06:33:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 29
Words: 102,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9166387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CeleryThesis/pseuds/CeleryThesis
Summary: How many trivial decisions have you made that altered the course of your life?Hermione Granger stays thirty minutes after a party. Her life will never be the same.Hermione Granger leaves when the party is over. Her life will never be the same.





	1. Chapter One:  July and August 1998

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes its title and duel-universe structure from Lionel Shriver’s novel The Post-Birthday World, and most of its characters from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. It is with deep admiration, and no intention to profit from Shriver's and Rowling’s original ideas, that I offer this work.

Footfalls echo in the memory down the passage which we did not take towards the door we never opened into the rose-garden.

T.S. Eliot

 

**Chapter One**

**July and August 1998**

 

Hermione Granger would not have even looked up from the computer if the twins weren’t called Harry and James.

She spent almost every afternoon at the Ottery St. Catchpole Public Library. It took her away from the endless hours of quidditch at the Burrow. Occasionally, she would go on outings with Ginny and Fleur, usually to wizarding London, usually to Diagon Ally. They had made such a trip last week to an apothecary for contraceptive potion for Hermione and Ginny—Fleur and Bill were working diligently to conceive a child, so Fleur tagged along solely for moral support. But most afternoons Hermione was here in the cold, quiet, small library.

The last time she had spent summer afternoons here was two years ago. The library had automated by then; a bank of computers lined the back wall, but the formidable wooden cabinets of the card catalogue remained, and Hermione had used them exclusively, avoiding the attention of such helpful librarians trying to steer her to the computers.

It's not that she usually needed the guidance, but occasionally a book, or more often an article, eluded her, and she had to use the reference guides.

This summer; however, the card catalogues were nowhere in sight. She had no choice but to conquer those machines.

They turned out to be miraculous in their efficiency. Enter a subject, even a partial title or name, and pages of likely possibilities popped up. Hermione felt the same way she did when she first transfigured that mouse into a teacup. She was ready to conquer the world.

The computers didn’t just contain the library catalogue, either. The whole world was there on the Internet, infinitely searchable, from places to order Chinese food in London to dental practices in Canberra.

The twins were running around the library, but Hermione was used to chaos at the Burrow. In the beginning of summer when they made it back from hell, it had been as quiet as a tomb, but over the weeks, life had returned; not the same of course, it would never be, but quidditch and elaborate meals and laughter, somewhat subdued, had returned. Nothing in these twins’ behaviour made Hermione glance up until she heard their names.

“Harry, James, you will come to me and settle down. Please, boys, just give me fifteen more minutes and we’ll go. We will stop by for treats, if you will just give me fifteen minutes.”

The speaker was a young woman, probably around thirty, with a small child on her lap. The woman had dark brown hair pinned on top of her head and was clearly in the later stages of pregnancy. She was seated at the end of the row of computers, and she had books and notes scattered around her. Hermione immediately sensed a kindred spirit.

“I’ll take them to the children’s section and read to them while you finish,” Hermione offered. The woman looked over at her in shock.

“Are you serious?”

“Yes. I’m finished here, just playing, really. I would love to go explore the children’s collection with them.”

“Thank you!” the woman said with great relief. “Harry, James, come meet…”

“Hermione.”

The woman looked at her incredulously.

“Hermione? This is too much. My husband won’t believe it. Hermione?”

“Yes?” She had no idea what her name had conjured for this woman.

“My husband is a professor of classics. Every baby he wants to name Lysander or Hermione or Minerva. I’ve won so far, but he’s holding out this time for Cassandra or Constantine.” She patted her belly. “When I tell him I met a real life Hermione, I’m going to have a hard time this round. I’m Rachael,” she extended her hand, and Hermione walked over and shook it. “This is Clare,” she indicated the toddler, who buried her face in her mother’s side. “The shy one.”

“The names you chose are lovely,” Hermione looked over at Harry and James who had approached their mother to investigate the stranger.

“Thank you. Nothing wrong with our own classics. Jonathan, that’s my husband, doesn’t realize it yet but this one is either Anne or Edmond, and as I am the one in labour, I get the final say.” She turned to the boys, “This is Hermione. She’s going to pay attention to you while I finish. Be nice to her.”

The boys, who were clearly fraternal twins, looked up at her expectantly.

“Let’s go find a book to read. Clare, would you like to come, too?”

The little girl with blue eyes under long, blonde lashes, again buried her face.

“This one is happiest just here,” Rachael said. “Thank you, so much!”

“Of course,” Hermione replied and led the boys to the children’s stacks. After about half an hour of Paddington and Dr. Seuss, Rachel and Clare emerged from the computers.

“Are you ready for an ice cream?” Rachael asked the boys.

“Yes!” said James.

“Can Her mine eo come too?” asked Harry.

“Hermione is welcome, of course,” Rachael smiled. “Please join us. It would be an enormous help with the boys and the push-chair, and I’d like to talk to you about a formal arrangement. You’ve been a life saver this afternoon.”

“I’m not expected back before dinner, so I’ll be happy to go with you. Better skip the ice cream, though,” Hermione told her.

“Where do you live?” Rachael asked her.

And wasn’t that just the question.

“I grew up near London, in Putney, but my parents emigrated to Australia last year. I go to school in Scotland. My…boyfriend’s family lives in the area. I’m staying there this summer.”

Rachael expertly strapped Clare into the double push chair and simultaneously wrangled the twins.

“My in-laws are from here, Felton-Mitchells,” Rachael said as if Hermione would be familiar with the name.

“My boyfriend’s family lives quite out of the way.”

“They are…?”

“Weasley.”

“Hmmmm, I haven’t heard of them, I’ll have to ask my mother-in-law; she knows everyone.”

“The Weasleys are a bit eccentric.”

“So are the Felton-Mitchells.”

They had arrived at the ice cream shop, and Rachael clearly had a routine for dealing with her children in this situation: three small vanilla cones and three times as many paper napkins as Hermione would ever think necessary. The children accepted their treats graciously and plopped themselves down at an outside table. Rachael vigilantly hovered over the consumption, paper napkin in hand, thwarting disaster before it arose. Hermione followed in kind.

Hermione hadn’t noticed in the harsh library lighting, but Rachael was stunningly beautiful. Her dark brown hair had natural red highlights in the sun. She had deep blue eyes and ivory skin. She had Veela like facial symmetry and nearly perfect bone structure, save a slight over-bite that made her sexy but still approachable.

All three children had large blue eyes and were dressed more formally than Hermione had seen of children, aside from photos of the princes in the pages of tabloids she remembered from childhood trips to the shops with her mother.

James had medium brown hair while Harry and Clare had light blond. The boys had traditional haircuts, short in the back, fringe to their eyebrows. Clare’s was parted on the side and secured with a ribbon covered clip. Their air and appearance made Hermione wonder if they usually had a nanny that was unavailable for some reason. Perhaps Rachael was a radically hands-on mother for someone of her station.

 “Anyway, we’re here for the next two weeks,” Rachael continued her narrative as the children ate their ice cream. “The baby is due in four, and I refuse to have it in what passes for hospital here, so we’ll be back in town. I’ve been trying to finish my thesis for years—for _four_ years—and I think I could do it if I had twenty-five hours. It’s written, but I have to revise and proofread my citations, awful, awful, horrible,” she said but seemed to feel quite the opposite.

“You’re going for a PhD?” Hermine asked.

“I’ve been attempting to for years, finished all the requirements except this blasted paper, and then the viva. Every time I get close though…” she patted her belly. “Wouldn’t change it. Jonathan and I always wanted a whole tribe. I’m one of four; he’s one of six.”

“Ronald, that’s my boyfriend, is one of seven.” Six now, she realized and felt a pang of agony once again.

“So you understand,” Rachael laughed.

“I suppose. I’m an only child.”

“Loved it or hated it? Both, I imagine.”

“That’s fair.” Hermione had mostly loved it. Her little of family of three had worked out very well before everything went to hell. But there had been times, summers mostly, when Hermione had longed for a sibling to spend the endless days with.

“Do you think you could come to the house for a few hours each day? I could escape to the library and perhaps even finish this before I pop. We would pay you, of course.”

The addition of a stipend was almost not necessary for her to agree, but she could certainly use the funds.

“Absolutely. I could do mornings, if you work better then, or afternoons, or both.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful! It’s takes us a while to function properly in the mornings, so what would you say to eleven to four or five, depending on the day? If you could handle lunch and, well naptime, which is often a pipe dream, I could get four solid hours of work at the library and finish this abomination in a week and a half.”

“That sounds like…not a problem,” Hermione realized just then that this new plan would probably baffle the others at the Burrow.

“Oh, Hermione, you have made my day—made my month!” Rachael exclaimed.

The children had finished their treats, and Rachael was firmly but gently cleaning faces and hands and then wiping down the table that had hardly been marred in the first place.

“Walk home with us so you will know where the house is?”

“Of course.” Hermione pushed Clare while Rachael held each boy’s hand. Rachael and Hermione chatted about the town as they walked. Hermione had never been to the shops Rachael liked and had only visited one café, but she tried to fake more familiarity. She _should_ be familiar for as much time as she had spent here in the past few years, but she had rarely ventured past the library.

This was becoming a frustratingly common feeling for Hermione. She was isolated in too many areas of her life. It was constraining. The experience of the past year had been traumatic, and mostly unpleasant, and challenging beyond her imagination, but it had reminded her that there was an enormous world out there beyond the little community to which she found herself tethered.

Rachael’s house was predictably impressive with a huge garden on all sides and beautiful blooms surrounding entire sets of outdoor furniture. Hermione had to stop herself from gasping. The boys let go of their mother’s hands and immediately started playing in the yard. Rachael unbuckled and lifted Clare from the pushchair and groaned a bit at the exertion.

“Here it is, such as it is,” Rachael sounded apologetic. “It’s rather a disaster.”

Hermione grasped to understand what she was talking about. There was slightly peeling paint around some of the windows, but that made the house more charming.

“This is your summer house?” Hermione asked, trying not to sound so naïve.

“Yes, it’s ours, it’s Jonathan’s, really, it’s officially owned by the Felton-Mitchells.”

“It’s so beautiful.”

“Oh, thank you. Come in for tea?” Rachael offered, but she looked rather exhausted, and Hermione realized no one at the Burrow had any idea where she was.

“I had better get back, but thank you. I’ll be here tomorrow at eleven?”

“Wonderful! I will see you then.”

Hermione retraced her steps through town. The Burrow was at the other end, about an equal distance from the library as Rachael’s house was. The Burrow was extensively charmed and warded and couldn’t be seen until one was right on the property. As soon as Hermione passed through the barrier, she saw the quidditch match was still in full swing. Sometimes Fleur would take in the sun on a blanket near the pitch, but she wasn’t there today. The rest of the family excluding Molly, who was no doubt finishing dinner preparations, and Arthur, who was still at work, was airborne passing quaffles or defending hoops or looking for the snitch. Ginny waved to her from on high, but no one else took notice of her arrival. She wished she had helped Rachael with the children for a while longer and had offered to brew the tea while Rachael put her feet up.

Hermione entered the house through the kitchen door. Molly had dinner squarely in progress, wooden spoons methodically stirring in big pots, but she was nowhere to be seen. Hermione peeked into the sitting room and saw her reclined on the sofa with a damp towel across the top of her face. Molly had been a shadow of herself since they returned to the Burrow. She hardly spoke and went to bed directly after dinner most nights. She didn’t usually want help with the chores, seemingly relishing projects she could throw herself into and turn off her mind for a while.

Hermione realized that she hadn’t seen Bill on a broom outside and guessed that he and Fleur were having alone time in their top-story room. She suddenly felt very lonely and quite out of place. She tried to shake it off and quietly returned to the room she sometimes shared with Ginny to fetch her book. She wasn’t completely taken with it—a Victorian Era Wizarding romance that was considered important literature in the community. She had planned to check out something that grabbed her more fully at the library but then she had been diverted by Rachael and the children. She supposed this novel was bound to be more captivating eventually.

She dragged her blanket and book outside just as Ginny captured the snitch, pursued by Harry closely, but victorious. Harry tackled her affectionately and rolled her around on the ground, but Ginny kept the snitch in her fist triumphantly. Hermione felt ridiculous clutching book and blanket to join a party already concluded.

When they entered the kitchen en masse, Molly was putting the finishing touches on dinner, and one would have never known that she had been in a state just a few minutes before. Hermione stashed her things quickly and started to set the table without asking permission, to which Molly said nothing. A quick glance to the clock showed that Arthur was on his way home. He had removed Fred’s hand against Molly’s protest, but he told her firmly that it was just too much to see every day; Fred endlessly at Hogwarts, never moving. Fleur’s hand had been added after the wedding. Harry and Hermione were not yet represented. The clock had been hidden throughout the war as too great a security risk.

Every meal was a feast at the Burrow. That night Molly had prepared chicken and vegetable stew with several varieties of cold salad, homemade bread, and berry tarts with vanilla ice cream that was churning itself outside the kitchen door. Bill and Fleur had sauntered down unnoticed by all but Hermione, and their dewy-eyed attention on each other confirmed to her how they had spent their afternoon. Percy joined them occasionally for dinner, a bit tentatively as his siblings were not quite ready for bygones, but he wasn’t there that night. Conversation centered on the Ministry and how it was responding to the crisis and trying to return to some normal semblance of business. Arthur was currently occupied with talking to Muggles on the periphery of the conflict, primarily people like Hermione’s parents—those who had inside knowledge of the wizarding world and had survived the war.

Hermione felt a familiar pang that perhaps she could have employed a less drastic option than total obliviation, but the people Arthur were seeing were much closer to the fringe than the parents of one member of the Golden Trio, and even some of the fringe hadn’t survived.

“We’re almost finished. Then we work on Muggle property restoration and compensation,” Arthur told them. There was a lull in the conversation, and Hermione seized the moment.

“I have a bit of news; I…well, I rather stumbled into a job today,” she said lightly.

“A job, Hermione?” Arthur spoke for the group, who all looked at her in surprise. “At school…or…?”

“No, I was at the library, and I met a mum and three children. I’m going to be a temporary, part-time nanny while the mum works on the thesis for her PhD.”

“Her what?” Ginny asked.

“Muggles?” Molly sat up straighter.

“Yes, Muggles. Rather posh ones, I think,” Hermione laughed. “The Felton-Mitchells?”

“Yes, that sounds familiar. All the high Muggles in town are the Something-Somethings,” Arthur said.

“This group has a stunning summer house, and from what I gather, there are several branches of the family about. These have four-year-old twins,” Molly blanched at the word and Hermione felt instantly stupid for saying it. She looked around the table and continued, “an almost two-year-old little girl and an imminent baby. That’s why I’m needed; the mum, her name is Rachael, wants to finish her thesis—it’s a long research paper, almost a book really, that doctoral candidates have to write and then defend.”

“She she’s going to be a Muggle doctor?” Harry asked.

“Not a medical doctor, her doctorate will be in English literature, but she’s primarily a mum at this point.”

“Seems a lot of work with babies and more babies,” Molly said quietly.

“I think it’s been in progress for quite a while, and she just wants to be finished before this new arrival. Oh, and I forgot the best part—the boys are Harry and James.”

The group agreed this was a positive sign. Ron didn’t have much to say, but that wasn’t unusual. She had assured them all she would just be gone for the afternoons.

Hermione and Charlie made quick work of washing up after dinner, while a spirited chess match was set up in the garden. Hermione could tell by the way Ginny was draping herself on Harry that Hermione would be in Ron’s room tonight, and she tried to stay awake so they could go up together, but she was knackered from all the activity that day. She kissed the top of his head; he seemed to be about three moves from defeating Bill, said goodnight to the group, and was the second after Molly to retreat upstairs.

She took a cool shower and put on her prettiest knickers, pink cotton with lace overlay, and a coordinating sleepshirt that outlined her breasts just so. She climbed into Ron’s four-poster. There was also a transfigured single bed Harry slept in during nights she stayed in Ginny’s room.

Just as she had drifted off to sleep, Ron climbed in the bed, freshly showered. She reached for him, and he pulled her close, kissing her face and then mouth, and she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him on top of her. They hadn’t shared a bed in a few days. She wasn’t sure why the couples hadn’t arrived at a more permanent arrangement, but they were all tip-toeing around Molly’s sensibilities.

Ron put his hand under her shirt and started groping her breasts, and she sat up slightly and removed the shirt, then wrapping her legs around him. He smelled wonderful from the shower, and she reached into his boxers to find his cock in a state that could generously be described as half-mast. She was already wet just from the kissing and initial contact, so it was a bit discouraging, but she went to work wrapping her hand around it and pushing her tits into his chest.

Ron had been quiet since they had returned to the Burrow. He slept most of the day and seemed disinterested in all activities excluding quidditch and chess. He also seemed rather disinterested in her.

 

In January, after Ron had returned to the quest, the two of them had been inseparable. They huddled together every night, ostensibly for warmth, but it was impossible to be pressed together and not have things progress. Kissing turned into groping turned into grinding against each other. Soon that wasn’t enough. One night, they silently shucked their trousers, Hermione carefully cast contraception spells she learned from a library book during fourth year, and he quietly pushed his cock inside her as Harry slept on, soundly, they hoped.

Library books had been Hermione’s only sex education aside from some very uncomfortable talks with her mother that were short on detail. She had researched the subject after the Yule Ball. Viktor had kissed her, and it had quickly evolved into legitimate snogging. He had not pushed for more, and she had been left with a longing she didn’t fully understand. As she had so many times before, she relied on the library. She had learned enough to understand the mechanics, but she hadn’t felt that longing again until she started sleeping pressed against Ron in the tent.

It became a comforting habit; one part of the day to look forward to. When Harry was away from the tent, they were bolder in their experimentation. Ron made Hermione come with his mouth—her first orgasm ever—which put both in a better mood for the next few days. Hermione felt guilty that they had something to help them endure the endless days and nights quite separate from Harry, but not guilty enough to stop.

She and Harry had streamlined the operation while Ron was away. This part of the day was devoted to fire wood, this part of the day was devoted to scavenging, hunting and gathering, this part to usually fruitless discussions concerning what they should be doing to advance the mission.

Hermione could sneak into a house or church or barn and find treasures she never would have given a second look to. All three had sets of clothes from laundry baskets in corners of entry ways or from clotheslines. Hermione was afraid to pass up any small item that might make some day easier, and obscure Muggle artifacts floated around in the beaded bag.

When the quest was turned on its head, and they were hurled into fast pace days of fighting for survival, Hermione and Ron still clung to each other. When Fred was killed that day, Ron went into a kind of walking shock; she practically had to tell him how to move as they entered the Shrieking Shack and then witnessed Riddle and Professor Snape and Nagini.

Then Harry was trying to catch Professor Snape’s memories, and Hermione was digging through the beaded bag for anti-venom she had brewed last summer in preparation for the trip. She found it with a little cry of triumph and started pouring it down the professor’s throat. Blood was gushing out of the wound in his neck, and Hermione pressed both hands against it as Harry worked. Snape looked only at Harry, as if Hermione’s mission meant nothing to him.

When Harry had finished, Ron pleaded with her to come with them. “He’s dying, and he’s evil, ‘Mione! He killed…”

“I know what he did,” she whispered furiously. “I’m not going to leave him. You go—help Harry. I will catch up.”

She was failing in her effort to stop the bleeding. She pulled her wand and cast a series of healing spells she had been practicing for months, but none had any effect on the wound.  She took off her jacket, keeping one hand on the gash on his neck and pressed the dirty cloth against him, cringing at all the germs she was transferring. She was fighting off tears as her desperation rose. The beaded bag was about a meter from where they were huddled together in a corner of the shack. She stretched out her booted foot and hooked the bag with it, bringing it to her. She pulled out a bottle of Muggle whiskey and doused both her jacket and his wound with it. He tried to scream, but it came out as a whistling hiss.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered and grabbed his hand. He squeezed it in agony.

She put the bottle to his lips and he managed to slug down about a shot. “I need the rest of it, sorry,” she said and took the bottle from his mouth. She had to let go of his hand, too, to root around the bag for a small object that had been lying at the bottom for months. She found the little plastic box and retrieved it.

The Muggle sewing kit had been in a house they raided months ago. She had almost left it, but figured that even if it were useless it didn’t take up much space, and perhaps the box would come in handy. She undid the plastic closure with her teeth, and then realized she couldn’t thread the needle one handed. She partially stood and using one knee, planted some of her weight against his neck to keep the jacket in place. She desperately whispered _lumos_ as she took the needle and thread from the kit.

She hadn’t threaded a needle in years, and her hands were shaking furiously _I have no choice, this must work_ , she whispered furiously and started stabbing the thread against the eye of the needle. On the fourth attempt, it went through.

“Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, breathe, breathe,” she told herself and Professor Snape. He looked both terribly distressed and terribly annoyed at the same time. She took a second to steady herself and plunged into the deepest corner of her mind.

Before she turned eleven and had her whole world change in one day, Hermione had dreamt of becoming a surgeon. Many nights she would lie in her bed and imagine herself placing sure, beautiful stitches. Both her parents performed oral surgery occasionally, and she had asked both many series of questions about their techniques. She willed herself to go back in time and to tap into her ten-year-old self.

“Professor, I am sorry, this is not going to be pleasant.”

He flashed her a look that screamed _None of this has been pleasant, dunderhead_! Still, he made no effort to crawl away from her.

She gingerly removed part of the jacket, and the wound overflowed with blood again. She would have to be constantly wiping with her left hand as she stitched with her right, and she would have to act with purpose, with no hesitation, or he would bleed out.

She took another breath, used her wiping hand to grab the whiskey bottle for one more douse, and then dove in with the needle in her other hand, piercing his skin. He let out another agonized wheeze. With the fingers on her wiping hand, she squeezed his skin together and made her first stitch. She adjusted her stance so she could see. It was delicate and straight. She plunged in again and again as she completed each stitch. She left about three inches of thread hanging out where she started—she didn’t have time to tie it off, and she wasn’t sure if a knot would hold anyway. She realized she was humming, singing really, under her breath, a pop song from her pre-Hogwarts life.

_Please don’t go. Don’t gooooooooooooooo away. Please don’t go. I’m begging you to stay._

She stitched and stitched, at some point he passed out, but his pulse was still there, he was still breathing. She counted her stitches between the song.

_Twenty-one, twenty-two…_

At twenty-four beautiful stiches, she had closed the wound. He was no longer bleeding.

“Yes!” she choked out and realized she had sobs in her throat that were finally coming out.  She needed to get him to St. Mungo’s immediately or all of this would be worthless. She grabbed her wand again and tried to summon a patronus with no luck; just a silvery thread that died at the tip. She cast some cleaning charms on the wound but couldn’t tell if they made any difference, which added to her desperation. She brought up an image of her child-self, dreaming of being a surgeon again.

 _Thank you_ , she whispered, and then focused on how she had been able to close that wound using her old dreams. She thought of Ron and sleeping pressed against him for months, and how she never wanted to sleep without him. She thought that whatever happened that day, at least she was here with others. She mustered some hope that they were close to the end of this struggle. She picked up her wand again and put these thoughts towards the spell.

The otter bounded out joyfully.

“St. Mungo’s: I have a high value…person here, who is gravely injured.”

The otter swam away in the air.

She had no idea how long she waited until the team arrived and sprinted him out. He never regained consciousness before he was taken. She grabbed her bag and made it back in time for the end of the battle; the war, as it turned out.

Hours later she stumbled into a shower in a large bathroom at Ravenclaw Tower, which had sustained less damage than Gryffindor. Under a showerhead with the hot water hitting her, she removed her filthy clothes, covered in weeks of dirt and Professor Snape’s dried blood. After standing there naked under the spray for close to an hour probably, she discarded all her clothes in the bin, and wrapped a towel around herself. She scavenged some clean underwear and Ravenclaw robes and went looking for Ron.

She found him sleeping, huddled in a corner near the Great Hall. She sat against him and fell asleep. Her next memory was waking up alone, curled in a ball as sunlight streamed in. Elves were passing out bread and tea, and she supposed she consumed some before joining the morning after tasks.

Hermione and Harry whispered to each other all day, mostly about Harry’s revelations concerning Snape. Hermione had always felt despite all protests that Snape had been an ally. She couldn’t make the evidence fit any other way. It had been the one subject she and Harry had to avoid so as not to snipe at each other during the mission. Now Harry was a convert, and there was no one more fervent than a convert.

“He let people hate him, Hermione. He let people think the absolute worst…”

All of them phased in and out of tears continually, and Harry had a fresh batch just then, so of course Hermione did, too.

“Harry…”

“Don’t say it, okay. I know. I know you were the one who always believed…”

“No, that’s not what I was going to say. I just hope…”

“I know,” Harry’s voice was shaky. “He has to live. I have to be able to speak with him.”

They changed the subject when Ron and Ginny were in earshot. The Weasley siblings had buried Fred first thing that morning. They continued to help with the grave for Tonks and Lupin, with the graves of the other aurors and students, but their eyes were dead.

The last task of the day was a mass grave for the death eaters, with Riddle at the very bottom of the pit. They dug a separate grave for Madam Lestrange at Hermione’s insistence. In case dear Bellatrix had any awareness of the proceedings, Hermione wanted to make sure she would have no comfort in the proximity of her remains to Riddle’s.

The day’s efforts weren’t far off from what they had done in the last few months on the mission. Emotionally, though, they were wrecked in a way they hadn’t been for most of the time. It had been trying, terrifying, and daunting, but it was nothing like the finality and grief they now endured. The victory was nothing like Hermione had imagined. There was no sweetness. There was no triumph. The relief she felt from the abating terror was tinged with despair over the vast loss.

They ate a late dinner, the first time they had eaten since breakfast, and she and Ron, desperate for some decent rest, found a Ravenclaw bed to collapse on. They lay in silence, and she thought they would fall to sleep immediately, but moments later, Ron was pulling at her robes as he had those times in the tent, tugging at her knickers, and entering her on his side from behind. Hermine enjoyed the comfort of the act and thought there was no way she would come, but she did under Ron’s insistent fingers. They fell asleep, and he woke up hours later, screaming. She rolled on top of him held him and let him sob into her. Then she fucked him again.

After they moved back to the Burrow, Ron only occasionally found comfort with her. He sometimes hardly looked at her, and they hadn’t had a real conversation since before the battle.

 

 

She felt the urgency to cement a connection with him all the time, but of course in bed. That night in his room, she moved her mouth from his and focused on his ear, nipping the lobe and then putting her tongue in and around as she wrapped a leg around him, pushing her groin closer to his. He hardened in her hand and she sighed in relief in his ear. He shoved her knickers down and felt her, in and around with his fingers. She hoped he found her wetness encouraging. She took down his pants, silently urging him to put his cock in her while he was still hard.

She wanted it too much. Her desperation deflated him. He slumped over on the other side of the bed. She reached again for his cock, but he turned abruptly, shucking her hand.

“No. It’s not going to happen, Hermione,” he said with audible disgust.

“It’s okay. Can I just…would you just…”

“I’m really tired…”

“Just hold on to me,” The pleading in her voice repulsed her, and him, too, apparently, because he turned over, gave her a perfunctory, quick embrace, and then settled as far away on the bed as he could manage.

She cried silently; she didn’t want him to pity comfort her. She finally fell asleep.

She slept rather late for her. She left Ron snoring softly close to the edge of the bed and took her tea and toast in the garden with her book. Molly was gardening and let Hermione help with the weeding until it was time for her to clean up for the day at the Felton-Mitchell’s.

She arrived at the house a few minutes early. She was nervous about meal preparation, but Rachael had planned cold sandwiches and fruit, which was hard to wreck.

The children ate most of their food, and Rachael left quietly while they were distracted to avoid a panic from Clare. The little girl realized immediately after lunch that mummy was gone and had a good, indignant cry for a quarter hour before falling asleep on Hermione’s lap. She put Clare in her bed carefully and spent the next hour reading to the twins and trying to convince them to sleep, which was futile. She finally let them out of bed and supervised train village construction until Clare awoke. They spent the rest of the afternoon in the garden until Rachael returned at four on the dot. This time, Hermione made the tea herself, almost breaking down in tears over the electric kettle that brought her back to her own kitchen in Putney and her parents’ mug collection hanging on hooks below the cupboards. It was almost as if she had apparated there.

She carried a charming tea tray with five cups, mostly milk for the children, tea for herself and Rachael, and a sleeve of biscuits she found in the pantry. She had a tear just under her eyelash that she shrugged off on her shoulder before Rachael could see.

“Were you able to work at all? Sometimes I find that conditions are perfect and I’m no longer inspired,” Hermione said lightly, tamping down that emotion.

“Oh, yes. I’ve finished the hard part, really, the part that required inspiration. I just have to revise and cite.”

“What is your thesis about?”

“Romantic period poetry blah, blah. I’m sick to death of it really. If I weren’t already pregnant, I’d probably throw myself at Jonathan to avoid having to find a job and actually teach or write another word about the lot of them,” she laughed, and Hermione tried to hide that fact that she was appalled at what Rachael was saying. “It doesn’t help that I’ve been working on this for eight years, I suppose, and before that university. Speaking of which, what are your plans? You are eighteen?”

“Yes, I had to miss the whole last year of school because of a bit of personal unrest. I’m supposed to go back and finish this year, and then who knows. I’m also thinking of chucking it all, taking my exams and just trying to enroll in university for the winter term.”

Rachael looked at her in obvious curiosity, but Hermione knew she wouldn’t enquire further. It would be presumptuous and rude. Hermione missed Muggle British manners.

“Would you be able to do well enough on your A-levels, having missed a year?”

“Probably. I would give myself six weeks or so to study first. It’s most likely moot anyway because I’m almost certainly going back to school.”

“In Scotland?”

“Yes.” Hermione finished her tea and gathered the cups and refuse on the tray. She washed up in the kitchen, and grabbed her bag. “Eleven tomorrow?”

“Yes, Hermione, thank you so much.” Rachael handed her a twenty-pound note, the first Hermione had ever earned.

“Thank you; see you tomorrow,” Hermione said goodbye to the children and began the walk home quickly adding up sums in her head. If she worked every day for the rest of the week and next, that would be one hundred and eighty pounds. It made her giddy.

She settled into a work schedule. The afternoons flew by, especially the few days the boys decided to sleep. Ginny stayed with Harry in her room most nights, but Ron waited until Hermione fell asleep and then slept on the spare bed. Hermione tried not to dwell on it too much. They would figure it out eventually.

Her summer job would end the first Saturday of August. Rachael was throwing a birthday party for Clare and asked for Hermione’s help.

Hermione wanted to give the children a token at the party before they left. She bought three white bath towels at one of the Muggle shops in town and solicited Molly’s help.

“I don’t know sewing charms, but I would like to decorate each towel with their name and symbol they would like.”

“That’s simple. What interests them?”

“The boys like football and trains. I guess Harry likes football a bit more and James trains. Clare likes ponies. That is something like a unicorn but…”

“I know what a pony is, Hermione,” Molly laughed. “I might need help with the football, though.”

Hermione sketched one, and Molly set to work. She was intent on the task rather than teaching, so Hermione didn’t learn much, but the towels turned out beautifully. James’s had his name in red stitching and a train that looked like the Hogwarts Express. Harry’s was blue with a lovely black and white football, and Clare’s was gold with a dappled pony.

“Tell me about the children,” Molly said as she folded the towels expertly showing off each design.

“The boys aren’t identical,” Hermione said quietly. Molly hitched her breath but maintained composure. “They favour each other, Clare as well, they are all fair skinned with blue eyes. They are quite well behaved. They don’t quarrel much.”

“Fred and George hardly quarreled with each other. They were _not_ well behaved, though,” Molly laughed.

“Harry and James are very protective of their sister, just as your boys are to Ginny.”

“I suppose we have more in common than we have differences with the Muggles although that’s hard for me to fathom, sometimes, forgive me, Hermione. I forget…”

“Oh, no, Molly. I forget, too, sometimes. There were many tasks I had to relearn at their home, but you’re right. Fundamentally the same. Good ones, awful ones, lots of average ones.”

“Is she close to her time to have the baby?”

“Any day now. She’s finished her project and has sent it off. She’s just hoping to be back in the city. The doctor and hospital she likes is there.”

“Those were the very best days. It’s her fourth baby? Fred and George were the fourth and fifth. I wasn’t sure how I was going to do it, but Bill was older, and so much help. I thought we might be through after a year with Fred and George, but Ronald had other plans and then Ginerva.” Molly looked happier during this reverie that she had in a year.

“Molly, excuse me if this is too personal, but did you ever think about a career?”

“I did. I earned an O on my charms NEWT. I enrolled in a culinary course and had an apprenticeship with a chef.”

“Did you like it?”

“It was very exciting, and I loved everything about the restaurant business from managing the wine list to designing the linens, but I married Arthur, and Bill was on his way very soon after that, and it’s not like I haven’t used all those skills over the years.”

“With your dexterity in charms, though…you must have wanted children right away,” Hermione cringed at her own impertinence, but she was curious. 

Molly laughed. “Once we were married, we wanted children right away,” she said, hinting that before they were married was a different story. “I haven’t regretted it. Not one day, Hermione. But…” she looked at Hermione with what seemed to be slight trepidation.

Hermione smiled at her encouragingly.

“It’s not for everyone.”

“No. There’s no reason, though, now, you know in 1998, that a witch couldn’t do both,” Hermione said.

“Of course not. But it would be quite challenging, I think. Anyway, you have loads of time. Can I ask you, Hermione, about Ronald?”

Hermione’s heart sank. “Of course.”

“I’m so worried about him.”

“I am, too.”

“Do you have any…insight about how to help him?” Molly started to cry and Hermione wasn’t far behind.

“I wish…I just don’t know, Molly. He’s not confiding in me currently; he’s not really talking to me at all.”

“I don’t think he’s talking to anyone. Are you, forgive my bluntness, are you together in a…romantic sense?”

“I don’t know. We were, but he’s keeping me away at the moment. I love him, Molly.”

“I know, dear. I don’t think we, the magical we, you know, are very good at these things. Helping people who need it.”

“How are _you,_ Molly?” Hermione asked her quietly.

“I’m…. I miss him all the time. I have such regret; you can’t begin to imagine. I’ll never be fully…well, I don’t think, but I have the others, and Arthur, and you, and Harry, and Fleur, and I will go on.”

Hermione had taken Molly’s hand, and she put the other arm around her shoulders. She realized they would all be leaving in a few weeks. Harry and Ron were supposed to begin Auror training at the Ministry, she and Ginny were heading back to school, Charlie would again go abroad, and Bill and Fleur would certainly want to return to their home. She was suddenly just as worried for Molly as she was for Ron. More, really because, Ron at least had this new challenge starting and would have to muddle through it. Molly was about to be left by herself for most of the day at the Burrow.

Having no solutions or even any helpful words, Hermione again asked for Molly’s help to wrap the little gifts and then dressed for the party. She was intimidated to meet the whole Felton-Mitchell crew, but also curious about them, especially Jonathan, whom Rachael and the children clearly adored.

She arrived an hour earlier than the start time of the party to help with last minute preparations. Rachael had hired a caterer and a party supply team was setting the garden, so Hermione helped dress the children in beautiful, rather formal summer outfits and found changes to have on hand in case one or more ruined their clothes.

When she walked down stairs behind the twins with Clare in her arms, she finally saw the man who must be Jonathan with his blue eyes and light hair, and looks reflected in all three children.

“Hermione?” he asked.

“Yes. Mr…Professor Felton-Mitchell?”

“Jonathan. I cannot begin to tell you how much I adore your name. If Rachael would ever play…”

“I love it, too, dear, but you’re wasting your breath,” Rachael laughed behind him.

They were dressed as formally as the children, and Hermione was self-conscious for the first time of her rather drab sundress.

“The children look wonderful, Hermione, thank you,” Rachael said.

“Can we hermitically seal them for the next hour?” Jonathan said.

“Not likely,” Rachael took Clare from Hermione. “Pretty birthday girl!”

“I have plans B and C in this bag,” Hermione had the folded extra outfits handy. “After that people will just have to accept that children sometimes are dirty.”

“Thank you,” Rachael said genuinely. “Any chance of you coming back to town with us and working full-time?”

“I wish I could.”

“Rachael said your school is in Scotland?” Jonathan inquired. “What’s it called?”

“Holwarton. It’s very small.” Hermione had concocted a cover story years ago when she returned home on breaks. She had even thought about designing a website at the library as she became more familiar with the computers.

“And what are your plans then? University? What interests you?” Jonathan asked her. Rachael was making a pot of tea and the children were playing in the sitting room. Hermione joined the couple at the breakfast table.

“So many things. Medicine, I suppose, primarily, but social work, too. I was thinking about medicine for very…vulnerable communities. Maybe medical research with a similar focus.”

“Don’t have children,” Rachael declared as she poured the tea.

“Rachael!” Jonathan seemed taken aback by his wife. “We know loads of physicians with families,” he told Hermione.

“We know one female physician with a child, and she’s the least happy person I know.”

“Darling, that’s not true. And look at you—you have four, almost, and a doctorate soon.”

“A doctorate that will probably be completely out of date before I’m able to use it in any practical way. A doctorate that took me years to finish and that I had to rely on being genetically averse to quitting to finish the wretched thing. Don’t worry, Darling, I love my life.” She leaned over and kissed Jonathan’s cheek. 

Hermione felt strongly that this whole conversation would never apply to her anyway, given her current situation, but she observed the dynamics of the marriage with interest. They clearly were besotted with each other.

“Don’t listen to her, Hermione. Rachael was the most brilliant in our year. Far more than me…”

“Not true,” Rachael said.

“Completely true. We both wanted a gaggle, and we’re rather close to completion on that, right?”

“Perhaps one more,” Rachael said with a smile.

“Perhaps one more; I’ll remind you of that in a week when you are cursing my name and all those of my sex,” Jonathan lay a gentle hand on Rachael’s belly.

“Yes, Darling, please do.”

“And then you will be back in the game if you want to be, although frankly you would be rather mad to, as university is overrun with imbeciles.”

“Just in the classics, surely,” she teased him.

“Oh, of course. Everyone in the literature department is well-reasoned and insightful.”

“That has been my experience.”

The horde arrived, and Hermione took over most the childcare. There were two other nannies, who knew each other and weren’t terribly friendly to Hermione. The children were surprisingly well-behaved, especially Rachael’s, Hermione noted with a bit of pride. The boys were thrilled she had given them presents, too, and James especially loved his Hogwarts Express towel. It made Hermione smile imagining the train connecting them in a tiny way.

Rachael held court among her in-laws, and Jonathan was right, she was brilliant. She also looked exhausted by the end of the party, and Hermione wished Jonathan would send his family on their way.

At the very end of the afternoon, when the sun was beginning its retreat beautifully behind the full, flowering trees in the garden, the family of five had settled at one round table together. Rachael’s feet were in Jonathan’s lap. Clare was exhausted beyond measure and was fussing, and the boys were sniping at each other a bit. Hermione wanted to stay and help with baths and bed, but she was expected at the Burrow and had no way of telling them she would be late short of patronus, which seemed dramatic for this occasion.

Clare let out a shuddering little sob, “Huhmioneeeee.”

 

 


	2. Chapter Two: Late Afternoon and Evening on Saturday, 1 August, 1998

**Chapter Two**

**Late Afternoon and Evening on Saturday, 1 August, 1998**

 

Hermione couldn’t ignore it. “Clare, would you like a bath?” The Burrow wouldn’t crumble and the family wouldn’t miss dinner without her there. They might not even notice her absence.

“Oh, Hermione, you don’t have to,” Rachael said, but she sounded grateful for the offer.

“I would love to do it; I won’t have to say goodbye yet,” Hermione scooped up Clare and carried her into the children’s bath on the second floor. James and Harry had followed—the bathtub was huge. They were clutching their new towels and Clare’s. Hermione turned on the faucet and started taking off Clare’s party dress. The boys were perfectly capable of disrobing on their own, and soon all three were splashing around in a tub with just a few inches of water to ward against spraying the whole room. Hermione sunk onto the bathroom floor to assist with the soap. She was that satisfied, happy kind of exhausted that one felt after a lovely day. There was a pitcher by the tub, and she doused each child with warm water from the tap before shutting it off.

“Let me grab some pajamas—boys keep an eye on your sister,” Hermione felt safe enough to leave the children with so little water in the tub. She hoisted herself up and walked down the hall to the wardrobe in the nursery.

She heard Jonathan and Rachael below, and she leaned over the staircase in time to see Jonathan pull Rachael into a kiss that was more passionate than affectionate. Rachael clucked in mild protest and then gave in. He gently led her to the sofa where he sat, and with his guiding hands, she straddled him, her belly balanced between them. With one look, she conveyed arousal, amusement, and adoration. His face reflected the same. One of his hands went to her face brushing the dark hair back as he kissed her, the other one was cupping her arse. Hermione, realizing she was staring with mouth agape, silently moved away from the railing, realizing she had violated their privacy. She entered the nursery and grabbed three pairs of pajamas before returning quickly to the bath.

She sank into the floor again as all her blood was rushing to her head. That would never be her with Ron. She felt she might have to crawl to the toilet and vomit or break down in sobs, but she did neither. She turned to the children.

“Towel time?” she asked them with forced cheerfulness. Three slippery bodies, three drying sessions, three children shimmying pajamas on to still wet bodies, three toothbrushes and combs.

Clare was practically asleep before Hermione could carry her to bed. She kissed the little blonde head, and pulled the blanket over the narrow shoulders.

“Goodbye, Clare,” she whispered.

The boys were playing happily with the trains in their room, and she lingered at their door a moment before she decided to let them be. As loudly as possible, she gathered her things and started making her way down the stairs. Jonathan and Rachael were sitting quite close together on the sofa with slightly embarrassed looks on their faces, but Hermione smiled and headed straight for the front door.

“I should be on my way,” she said as her hand had almost brushed the knob.

“Thank you, Hermione, for everything,” Rachael called from across the room.

“Oh, of course, and good luck with…it all,” she said as cheerily as she could and made it through the door.

She could hear sounds from the village in front of her, but they were muffled as she walked down the path. Her whole world was inside her head at that moment. There was a clarity of purpose, but the consequences of her current thoughts were right there as well in a barrage. She didn’t squelch them as much as table them, organized into a box to be taken down soon.

Hermione wasn’t ambivalent in her feelings towards Ron. She adored him. If he asked, she suspected she would give up everything for him. Shameful, but there it was. That wasn’t what was making the walls in her head come crashing down at once. What she knew with certainty, is that he wouldn’t care to ask.

She had heard Rachael’s warning about career and family, and she had understood it. It hadn’t mattered. If Ron loved her, she would have born as many children as he wanted, she would swear to it right then. Love would have been enough if it had been there.

She felt the need to flee. She felt intense grief that this was to be the end. She couldn’t abide the thought that she would never be with him again, but she couldn’t imagine going on the way they were.

She heard the group before she saw them. The quidditch seemed to have been over for a while, but the players were lingering on the Burrow pitch drinking charmed bottles of cold water. They had moved lawn furniture from the garden and were loudly bantering about the finer points of their most recent match and quidditch in general. Fleur and Ginny finally waved at Hermione, but her focus was Ron. She walked over to the group and stood behind the chair where he had settled, and then crouched so her head was on his shoulder near his ear.

“I need to speak with you,” she whispered insistently, squeezing his bicep lightly with both hands but trying to appear casual to all.

“Okay…” Ron looked baffled, and she decided to push it further.

She pulled him out of the chair by his hand and then led him across the large yard, into the garden to the potting shed, and then closed the door behind them.

“Hermione…”

She put her mouth on his and kissed him insistently. He was too shocked to protest, or perhaps he had managed a fantastic save during the game, because he kissed her back. She pressed herself into him and ran her hands all over him, back, sides, arse, the back of his head. She snaked one hand around and pressed it against the front of his athletic shorts. Nothing terribly encouraging yet. She dropped to her knees and took down the elastic waist with her hands just as there were some perceptible signs of life. _Yes_ , she thought and continued, taking his hardening cock into her mouth. It continued to spring to life most gloriously as she ran her tongue all over it. He moaned, and she continued until he grabbed her shoulder and stood her up while spinning her around so she was up against the ledge of the table in the middle of the shed.

She yanked up the skirt of her sundress as he pulled down her knickers with one go. Then he stalled as if he were unsure how to proceed.

“Fuck me,” she told him, bending as far forward as she could manage and spreading her legs. _Come on, come on, come on_. He felt her quim tentatively and then pressed his still hard cock against her.

“Yes, Ron, please fuck me now!” she gasped, and he pushed into her and started to move. She reared back against him and grabbed his hand, bringing it over her hip, around the skirt, against the ledge of the table to her clitoris and used his fingers to rub against until he took over. Then she reached up and grabbed his head behind her and encouraged him loudly with both sounds and precise language.

He remained silent during her monologue, but she kept going as his breathing became more and more ragged. She felt herself escalating toward orgasm, and the sound of her own voice and the audacity it had taken to bring him here as much as anything he was doing was carrying her there.

“Fuck, yes Ron, right there, FUCK, yes! RIGHT THERE!” She was just tripping over that edge when he finally spoke.

“If. You. Would. Shut. Up. For……..Fuuuuuuuuuuck! His voice was first quiet staccato, and then a wail as he came with her. Her hips slammed way too hard against the ledge, and they both lost balance and crumpled to the ground.

“Fuck, Hermione, what was THAT?” he said as he put his shorts back on.

She pulled her knickers up awkwardly and took a drink from his water bottle that had crashed to the ground at some point. She passed it to him. They were quiet for a stretch of time, minutes, it felt like. She reached up and with her fingers gently brushed the sweaty, long hair covering his forehead aside.

“Ron,” she said quietly. “You’re not happy. I mean, I know you’re not happy because of Fred, and well, all of it, but you’re not happy with me.”

“Hermione…”

She waited moments for him to finish. He was studying his bottle intently. The silence stretched on.

“It’s okay, Ron. You can tell me. Please just talk to me.”

“I love you, Hermione.” He said it so softly, and it was clearly not all he was thinking.

“I know you do.”

“I can’t…be with you, I can’t be with anyone, I don’t think, right now.”

“You aren’t in love with me.” She was trying so hard, but her voice hitched just then.

“Are you in love with _me_ , Hermione? Really in love?”

_Yes. For so many years._

“I love you, Ronald. But I understand, I do. The timing isn’t right, and…”

“It’s not just that, Hermione—I don’t think, well, I’ve thought about this a lot, constantly, really. I can’t…I can’t think of you without thinking about Fred…about all of it, really. My mind goes to all that, and it makes me ill or…I don’t know. It’s just…it’s just not right somehow.  And…I don’t think we’re suited. You need someone who you can…who can understand everything you think about and...you know, that’s usually not me. Please don’t cry, ‘Mione. I don’t think we would make each other happy, do you, really?”

_You could make me so happy._

 “You just deserve someone…” he faltered, with his own tears welling.

_Who actually loves me. Who is in love with me. Which is not you._

The dam burst and she hacked out a few mortifying sobs.

“Oh, Hermione, don’t cry. Shag me like that again, and I’ll forget this all anyway.”

“It _was_ spectacular,” she laughed through tears. “I came just as you told me to shut up.”

“Well, that is unfortunate…”

“No, it was great, it’s what I needed. It’s going to be okay. I’m not going back to Hogwarts. I’m moving to Covington. Tomorrow, I think.”

“WHAT? Hermione, have you lost…”

“Not at all. I have two-hundred and twenty-five pounds, and I’m going to find a job and a room and try to enroll in university for the winter term. That’s what I brought you in here to talk to you about, well after.”

“Why? Why not just finish seventh year? You’ll have to take NEWTs to be admitted to uni anyway.”

“I think they’ll let me take them there this autumn. We’re rather a big deal, you know. They’re letting you and Harry skip seventh year, I figure they’ll let me, too. And if they don’t…well, I’ll just wear them down. If all else fails, I’ll take my A-levels as a homeschooler and go to Muggle university. In any case, I’ll work and study and not lose a whole year, just a half.”

“Is it those Muggles, then? Did they talk you into this? Are you going to be working for them?”

“No, I won’t see them, it would all be too confusing, but yes, being with the family made me realize…” she didn’t want to finish her sentence, so she swerved. “I’m not risk averse, you know,” and she smiled at him.

“No, you’re not.”

“And try to keep me away from London and Grimmauld Place when I have time off. I was so bloody jealous of you and Harry being able to live on your own and being adults and starting your lives while I was going to be in Scotland for ten months, no thanks.” She was starting to believe it.

They heard Ginny calling them in the house for dinner. He bounded up and offered her a hand and then helped her brush off from the dirty ground of the potting shed. She brought him in for a tight embrace and then he walked with her hand in hand to the house. He seemed lighter and less miserable than she had seen him in a year.

Percy had arrived with Arthur as a last-minute surprise, so they set another plate. Molly was visibly happier, and that was enough for most to try, but the loud clamour of usual dinner was replaced with prolonged silence as they tucked into the fish and potato stew Molly had prepared.

“So, Perce,” George said, breaking the silence. “How ya gettin’ along with the new Minister?”

Ginny choked on a bite, Arthur looked at the ceiling, and Charlie smacked his younger brother on the head.

“Ouch! Watch the ear!” George yelped.

Molly sighed and put down her spoon. Hermione made a quick decision to throw out her plan. If nothing else, it would be a welcome change in subject.

“So…I’m moving to Covington tomorrow. I’m going to attempt to enroll for the winter term, and in the meantime, I’m going to find work and a place to live.” She went over some of the details she had hashed out in her head and then concluded. “Thank you so much, all of you, for letting me stay here so long, and for making me a part of the family.”

Every person at the table was staring at her.

“Sunday is not the best day to find employment and a place to live,” Arthur said, rather horrified, and Hermione agreed to wait until Monday.

“How can you make me go back to school alone?” Ginny wailed.

“You won’t be alone, and I’m sorry, but I just can’t.”

“Is two hundred and twenty-five pounds enough money?” Harry asked.

“Not even close!” Bill said in an exasperated tone.

“That’s why I must find a job as soon as possible. After the last year, I can do almost anything.”

“They may not let you take the NEWTs on demand at university, Hermione,” Arthur warned her. “They are very expensive tests—that’s why the fees go up seventh year at school—and Hogwarts pays the majority. If they did let you take them, they would probably charge you tens of galleons.”

“I supposed I had better find that job right away then.”

“I think it’s very brave,” Molly said quietly. “Hermione, come in the kitchen with me and help me with dessert.” She closed the door behind them.

“What happened with Ronald?” she asked Hermione as soon as they were out of earshot. Hermione turned crimson immediately although she realized that wasn’t what Molly was asking about.

“I don’t know,” she stalled, not knowing how to talk to Molly about this. “I guess we were just honest with each other.”

“He seems so much better tonight.”

Hermione agreed but it hurt to hear the words.

“We’re not together; we won’t be.”

“How are you?” Molly asked with concern.

“Sad,” she said and felt tears again. Molly took her into her arms. “It’s the right thing, though. He’s wanted to tell me, I’m fairly sure, for a long time.” She patted Molly’s back and returned to slicing berry pie.

“He should have his head examined,” Molly said and then froze, realizing the implications of that statement. “I mean…”

Hermione laughed a little. “I think he’ll be okay. He felt pressured to do the right thing, or what he thought people would expect him to do. Now he can go to London free of the burden.”

“Hermione!”

“Oh, that’s not what I mean. I’m not being a martyr, I promise. I’m very content with my plan. I’m sorry to leave you, though.”

“Oh, don’t worry about me. We’ll muddle through,” Molly said, levitating ten dessert plates with pie a la mode and a fork for each. She flicked her wand to open the door, and the servings of pie floated obediently into the dining room, where Arthur had led an effort to clean the table. The dirty dishes were stacked at one end, and Ron, George, and Charlie rose immediately to see them to the kitchen sink.

“Sit down,” Molly told them. “There’s plenty of time for that later, and your ice cream will melt if you don’t eat it now.”

Her lighter spirit was so apparent that her children obeyed her without protest and everyone enjoyed the pie. Percy made a quick exit after dessert, and Charlie and Hermione handled the washing.

“I think you have the right idea,” he said to her across the sink. “I wouldn’t want to go back to school either, not after last year. Ginny doesn’t have a choice…”

“When are you heading back to Romania?”

“Soon.”

“I’m worried about your mum.”

“I’ll be back as often as I can, and you should come around some, too. She loves you like another daughter, you know. I reckon Bill will have Fleur up the duff soon, and that should be just what Mum needs.”

Ginny was still incensed at Hermione at bedtime, and was also perhaps looking for an excuse to share a room with Harry. She followed Harry into her room without giving Hermione another look.

“I can share with Charlie,” Ron offered, freshly showered in a clean t-shirt and shorts and looking delicious.

“Please stay in here with me. I’ll take the little bed. We only have two more nights, and I don’t want to be all my myself. I won’t attack you again, I promise.”

 “That’s the least of my worries,” Ron said with a grin. “Blimey, Hermione, that was something else.”

“Go out with a bang, you know,” she said.

They talked more that night than they had all summer. He finally drifted off, and she was left in the quiet, alone despite his presence. She was both profoundly sad and genuinely excited—empowered. She crept out of bed and went in search of parchment and quill to start making lists.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At the beginning of this chapter, Hermione's universe splits into two. The next chapter starts the story of the other universe. This one will be updated in the even chapters, and the other in the odd. There are many parallels as we go along, so you should read the chapters in order, not one universe at a time. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy...


	3. Chapter Two: Late Afternoon and Evening on Saturday, 1 August, 1998

**Chapter Two**

**Late Afternoon and Evening on Saturday, 1 August, 1998**

“Oh, Clare, sweet girl, I have to go.” Hermione kissed the top of the little blonde head. Clare was practically asleep already, and Hermione didn’t think Rachael or perhaps Jonathan would have a difficult time moving Clare to bed.

Hermione said goodbye to the family, promising to stay in touch while having no intention to do so. It would be too confusing for all. She wished the children were in a better mood for the last time she would likely see them.

She could still hear them all as she walked down the path, and she wanted to turn around and say another round of goodbyes; to insist upon bathing them and putting them to bed, but she was just as anxious to return to the Burrow and see Ron. She turned in a little pirouette and laughed at herself. Her steps were so light on the path that led back in to the village.

In her mind, she was replaying the scene from that morning when they had shared tea. That moment when Rachael and Jonathan had discussed their next baby was so intimate, she felt as if she shouldn’t have witnessed it. Jonathan bragged about how brilliant Rachael was, and she was clearly realistic about balancing her professional ambition with being a mother and wife. Jonathan didn’t just see her in that traditional role, but they seemed to be in harmony about what their family should be and truly who the other was as a person. It was spectacularly encouraging.

And those children! Two was supposed to be such a difficult age, but she could sit with Clare for hours reading to her and helping her dress her dolls and letting the little girl fall asleep against her, smelling her hair. The boys, too—so energetic, so curious and intelligent. At four they could engage in conversation about everything from football statistics, to the insects in the garden, to exactly why dragons are so amazing. She had helped foster that specific fascination with stories she wasn’t actually creative enough to have made up, but they would never know that.

She would raise her own children in a very different society, but she hoped that everything she loved and admired about these children and about Jonathan and Rachael as a couple was universal.

She could point to so many examples in the last year that showed how much Ron loved her. He understood who she truly was, and he hadn’t tried to change her. Even his horcrux induced jealousy was revealing. He was obviously traumatized, but who wouldn’t be? She was a mess as well; they all were. She had lost her parents; he had lost a brother. They would work through everything together. She would be so patient with him. They were soulmates, and it would work out. She could even picture him trying to convince her to have one more baby. It made her laugh again, and she hardly felt time passing as she reached the turn off to the Burrow. She was almost skipping.

The quidditch was still going on, Harry and Ginny both looking intently for the snitch from on high when she entered the garden. Fleur was on the blanket, and Hermione sat beside her.

“Who’s winning?” she asked Fleur.

“I don’t know what the teams are.”

Hermione laughed. Just then, her eye caught a sparkle in the distance, and within moments both Ginny and Harry were flying toward it, a red blur and a darker blur, across the pitch and then down, down, down. Hermione turned away, not wanting to see the inevitable crash to the ground. She heard it, though, along with the shouts from the players and grunts from Harry and Ginny. Ginny’s ensuing agonized wail revealed the losing side.

The players descended on their brooms, the rehashing of the match already beginning. Fleur started passing out water bottles charmed to stay cold. Hermione stood up from the blanket and walked straight to Ron.

She put her arms around him, unashamed in front of the group and planted a kiss on his mouth. He didn’t shrug her off, but he threw a sheepish look to the others, who weren’t paying a bit of attention to them.

“Finished with work, then?” he said.

“Yes, they’re back to town on Monday. I’ll miss them.”

“Miss the money, too.”

“Of course, but I really did like them. I wish you could have met them; the children were so lovely, and the parents, too.”

“I’m going to take a shower before dinner, Hermione, I’ll see you,” Ron left her at the pitch.

She drifted over to Ginny and Fleur who were levitating garden furniture to the group before sinking down in chairs. The boys started flying around again overhead.

“Sit,” Ginny patted the spot beside her. “Finished your job?”

“Yeah, a bit sad to see it end.”

“It will be nice to have you around afternoons,” Fleur said kindly in her lightly accented English.

“Well, thank you, Fleurie. But you and Bill will be going back soon?”

“Bill’s going back to work Monday, but we’re going to stay here a few more weeks.”

“That will be nice for Mum,” Ginny said.

“I am worried about her, though, when we all leave in a month,” Hermione bit her lip.

“I am, too,” Ginny passed over an unused water bottle to Hermione.

“I know it will be difficult with school, but I think we should try to be here on Saturday nights for dinner, and maybe even stay over Sunday,” Hermione said.

“Are you sure you will be able to do that when school starts and you have NEWTs to study for?” Ginny asked.

“I can study here. Anyway, with the boys in London…”

“Quite the incentive,” Fleur laughed.

“Well, it would be a way to guarantee being under the same roof with them once a week,” Hermione laughed along with Fleur as she said it.

 “I think it sounds like a good plan. Bill sometimes has Gringotts events on Saturday nights, but we will be here the rest of the time,” Fleur said.

“Yes, it would be good for Mum although I’m not sure I need to see that one so much,” Ginny yelled the last part in Harry’s direction.

 “Sorry, Gin!” he called back to her.

“Garden quidditch, not the World Cup,” she yelled to him.

The boys came out of the sky and joined them on the chairs. Hermione wished that Ron hadn’t gone inside. Both Bill and Fleur and Harry and Ginny were sitting with their chairs pushed together and the whole group was bantering loudly about the game. Hermione decided to go in and see if Molly needed help. She had everything practically on the table for six o’clock dinner but gave Hermione a few perfunctory tasks.

Percy arrived with Arthur as a last-minute surprise, so they set another plate. Molly was visibly happier, and that was enough for most to try, but the loud clamour of usual dinner was replaced with prolonged silence as they tucked into the fish and potato stew Molly had prepared.

“So, Perce,” George said, breaking the silence. “How ya gettin’ along with the new Minister?”

Ginny choked on a bite, Arthur looked at the ceiling, and Charlie smacked his younger brother on the head.

“Ouch! Watch the ear!” George yelped.

Molly sighed and put down her spoon. Everyone was looking at each other, waiting for someone to say something and alleviate the tension. Hermione was distracted because Ron smelled so nice after his shower.

“How was the quidditch, then?” Arthur asked the table, and five people started speaking at once about the nuances of the match.

After the bowls were empty, Hermione rose with Molly to help with dessert, overstuffed berry pies with vanilla ice cream.

Hermione hid a quick mental head-count and portioned out eleven perfect servings on small plates, while Molly added a scoop to each.

“You seem happy, tonight,” Molly told her. “Did the children like their towels?”

“Loved them, thank you so much,” Hermione put one arm around Molly shoulders and squeezed. Molly kissed her on the cheek and flicked her wand to open the door, and the servings of pie floated obediently into the dining room, where Arthur had led an effort to clean the table. The dirty dishes were stacked at one end, and George and Charlie rose immediately to see them to the kitchen sink.

“Sit down,” Molly told them. “There’s plenty of time for that later, and your ice cream will melt if you don’t eat it now.”

As soon as they were finished, Hermione and Charlie started on the dishes. She told him about their Saturday night dinner at the Burrow plan.

“I’ll get back as often as I can,” he said. “Is Ron okay then, Hermione?”

“I think he will be fine,” she said, assuring herself as well.

It was a beautiful night, and they retired to the garden tables with drinks, watching the sun set.  The brothers built a fire in the pit, and everyone had a second round. Around ten, couples started quietly returning to the house, Arthur and Molly first, then Bill and Fleur, then Harry and Ginny. Percy apparated with a pop back to his flat in London. Charlie, George, Ron, and Hermione were the only ones left. George opened another bottle of fire whiskey, and Hermione steeled herself to wait this out.

Finally, at midnight, George and Charlie decided they’d had enough.

“Come on, one more,” Ron cajoled.

“Sorry, need my beauty rest,” George said.

Charlie just yawned and followed his brother.

“Come on, Ron,” Hermione stood up and took his hand.

“I’ll be up in a bit,” he said, not looking at her.

“Please, Ron, come up with me,” Hermione felt a knot in her throat and wet heat behind her eyes that made her voice hitch a tiny bit.

“Of course, sorry,” he said, and followed her.

They brushed their teeth side by side, and then took turns using the loo. Travelling together and staying in the tent for almost a year had made bedtime routines second nature and not awkward.

Hermione changed into a nightshirt and climbed into Ron’s bed, waiting for him, reading her book. He joined her in bed, and she put the book down, snuggling up beside him.

“Nox,” she whispered and the lamp went out, but the half-moon flooded the room with subtle light. She kissed the side of his face, and he turned his head and kissed her on the mouth. She responded immediately, opening her mouth and draping one leg across his hips. She reached into his shorts, took his flaccid cock in her hands, and it began to harden.

She slipped below the bedclothes, placing him on his back, and took down his shorts and pants. His mostly erect cock popped out, and she put one hand on it as she took him in her mouth. He responded immediately becoming very hard and moaning appreciatively. She rolled his bollocks in one hand while taking him as far down her throat as she could manage and used her tongue as best she could. As his breath became more and more ragged, he tried to guide her up, but she was determined for him to finish like this. Very soon, he warned he was about to come, and she took him in even farther down her throat.

He cried out, “Merlin!” as he came in her mouth, and it was the most joyful sound she had heard in days.

He insisted on reciprocating, but her mind was too far away, and she’d had too much fire whiskey trying to wait him out in the garden to be able to come. She faked it convincingly about three minutes into his efforts, and then took him into her arms, falling asleep feeling more satisfied than she believed she would have after multiple real orgasms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now back to the other universe...
> 
> The stories will continue to alternate. Please alert me in comments if you are confused.


	4. Chapter Three: October 1998

**Chapter Three**

**October 1998**

 

Hermione’s shift started at 5:00 A.M., so her wand started shaking at 4:30. She fought the urge to hurl it across the room, flipped over in the bed, and wallowed in her misery for a few minutes before staggering to the shower. She wound her hair on her head—shampooing was a luxury for longer stretches of time—washed from face to toe with bar soap, and stayed under the hot water for a few minutes before she had to face further the day’s reality.

She dried herself off and put on her last clean denims and a short-sleeved button down that didn’t restrict her movement. She would have to do some laundry tonight. It almost sounded peaceful, and she wished she could fast forward thirteen hours. She tied on some ugly but comfortable trainers and headed down the stairs to the café.

“Good morning, Hermione,” Marilyn said, as Hermione put on an apron and poured coffee to slam before the first of the breakfast crowd arrived.

Hermione vastly preferred tea, but that was for the fifteen minutes she would have to sit between late breakfast and early lunch, not for here in the kitchen just to sustain herself for the next six hours.

“Morning, Marilyn.” Her boss was late middle-aged—Hermione would guess mid-sixties. She was pleasant, not overly chatty, and didn’t question Hermione’s cover story. Marilyn’s husband, Bob, was the breakfast cook. The lunch cook came in at eleven and there were three assistants, who worked various shifts. Hermione, Marilyn, and a few other part-time servers waited on the tables and handled the till. The place was called _Foster’s_ , named for its owners, and served the Muggle university crowd—students and professors during the week, alums and football fans on the weekends. They did a tidy business, and Hermione felt lucky that she had applied for the job the perfect Monday after a long-time employee had graduated in early summer, and potential replacements had not worked out.

Hermione was willing to work whenever the pace was open, breakfast until five P.M. Monday through Thursday, and until eight Friday and Saturday. Hermione was on the clock until she hit maximum hours, which was usually after breakfast on Saturday.

Marilyn allowed her to go take care of university business after the lunch rush and before tea. University proving to be the most frustrating part of Hermione’s life, apart from the absence of affection from Ron Weasley. The university was happy for her to sit for her NEWTs, providing she received a letter of release from the Hogwarts’s faculty declaring her ready, and on the condition that she could pay the fees, which were significantly more than Arthur had speculated. She could work every available shift from now until Christmas and still not have half the money she would need.

She hardly had to pay for her room—the Fosters owned it and appreciated someone living above the café in the after-hours. They also provided most of her meals. She took a port key to Gringotts once a week to deposit her wages, and she watched her balance grow ever so slowly.

The university didn’t much care that she was Hermione Granger of the Golden Trio. The witches in the admissions office did not indicate that they knew who she was, and despite her earlier bluster with Ron, she did not play the war hero card. The whole ordeal was one more humbling aspect of an extremely humble existence.

She wrote Headmistress McGonagall and asked for dispensation for Transfiguration, Charms, Potions, Arithmancy, Care of Magical Creatures, and Herbology. She was on the fence about History of Magic. It was one of her favorite subjects, but she didn’t need it for her program. Runes was a luxury she knew she couldn’t afford.

The Thursday breakfast crowd was heavy as usual. It was almost Friday, and people needed an extra push to finish the week. Hermione poured cup after cup of coffee while she took orders and served hot breakfasts. By eight A.M., most patrons wanted tea, so she spent her time passing the set-ups and continuing to serve the eggs, porridge, and toast.

The job wasn’t terribly mentally taxing. She had a good memory and could keep up with multiple orders for multiple tables. Physically, it was difficult, and it could be very loud, which proved to be a challenge. One time another server misjudged the corner of a table as he tried to enter the swinging door to the kitchen, and his whole tray of used dishes clattered to the floor. In seconds, Hermione had ducked under the nearest table and was reaching for her wand (tucked into her sock against her trouser leg) before she had processed the source of the noise. Marilyn had looked at her with wide eyes but hadn’t said anything. Hermione managed to control herself before she produced the wand.

It settled down at about 9:45. Marilyn retreated to the office to work on the books, and Hermione sat down with a cup of tea and a novel. A few people came in, but mostly just for tea. It would be quiet until lunch, which was a three-hour madhouse and then it was fairly quiet until it was time to close.

Her feet were aching at five, and the laundry task, which had seemed so pleasant this morning sat on her shoulders like a heavy, wet cloud. She thought about washing some denims and knickers in the tub and hanging them for the next day, but that was more depressing than trudging to the laundry.  

There was a lovely surprise for her, though, waiting in her room: the Hogwarts letter had arrived. She broke through the seal and collapsed on a chair to read. It was a personal letter from the Headmistress.

 

7 October, 1998

Dear Miss Granger,

I was happy to hear from you and receive confirmation that you DO have a plan and have not just gone a wee bit mad. I have sent your records to the university, and with one exception, the Hogwarts faculty have granted you dispensation to take your NEWTs there. We wish you all the best.

I regret to inform you that Professor Snape will not grant permission for you to diverge from the protocol. I apologize for any problems this causes you.

I’m very proud of you, dear, and wish you all the success you deserve.

 

Sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Hogwarts Headmistress

 

Hermione let out a high-pitched growled in frustration. She shoved her laundry in a bag, and started strategizing. Ginny had forgiven her for abandoning school and had written several times about life at Hogwarts this term. In one letter, she had written specifically about Professor Snape. Hermione snatched Ginny’s letters, the laundry bag with washing powder on top, shoved some change in her pocket, and headed out the door.

The launderette was busy, and Hermione only had access to one machine, so she prioritized her needs, and filled it with enough work clothes and underwear to make it through the weekend before she could return on Monday.

She sat down in an uncomfortable chair and scanned the letters for the passage she wanted. She found it in Ginny’s second letter, one from mid-September.

_Potions is a challenge. I can’t look at the man without feeling rage. Harry lectures me about what a hero Snape is, but I can’t see him without remembering how awful last year was. He supposedly tried to protect us, but I see scant evidence of it. He seemed gleeful when we would be punished by the Carrows. McGonagall, Sprout, and Flitwick were openly hostile to him last year. It’s hard to reconcile that with Harry’s account._

_He wasn’t even tried, you know. Between Harry’s story and the testimony from Dumbledore’s portrait, they didn’t even CHARGE Snape. I don’t talk to Harry about it because then he won’t stop on the subject. But he wasn’t there last year. He doesn’t know what it was like. I know you three had massive struggles where you were, but we did, too, and Harry and Ron don’t always acknowledge it._

_Anyway, Snape looks laughably awful. They must have shaved his head at St. Mungo’s, and it looks ridiculous growing out. I wouldn’t have thought the git’s hair could look worse than those greasy locks, but it does._

_He sits at his desk in front and smacks the board behind him with his wand. He mainly teaches via nasty look, but he occasionally rasps out some command or other. There are only twenty seventh years taking Potions, and they mixed the houses. There is only one Slytherin seventh year in the class, Lucinda Hall. Not even she can abide him, and I have nothing but contempt for him. I’m probably not even going to take the Potions NEWT anyway, so I’m thinking of dropping the class after the term._

Hermione read the passage again and again as the washing machine ran through its cycles. After she transferred her clothes into the dryer, she started composing letters in her head. Emergency medicine in the shrieking shack aside, she had never had a satisfactory interaction with Professor Snape, and she had little hope that this would be different. Perhaps she could wear him down. Ginny’s account made him seem almost frail.

She folded her dry clothes quickly and packed up her things, continuing to draft the letter in her head. She returned to her room and shoved the items into their proper drawers before summoning her quill and parchment.

_What do you want, Professor?_

She had no idea.

 

7 October 1998

 

Dear Professor Snape,

 

~~I was so happy to hear of your return to Hogwarts.~~

~~I was so happy to hear of your recovery.~~

~~I was so happy to hear you were teaching potions again. The students deserve to learn from a master.~~

~~I need your help.~~

~~It would amuse you no end to see me work this menial job.~~

~~Do you remember the last time we saw each other?~~

~~The last time we saw each other was something else.~~

~~From one insufferable know-it-all to another…~~

Please allow me to take my Potions NEWT.

 

Sincerely,

Hermione Granger

 

Only the last line was written on the parchment in the end. She sealed the letter and raced blocks to the wizarding section of town and the owlery. She didn’t have her own owl; it wouldn’t make sense to keep one where she lived. She dropped a knut in the box and an owl flew out of a window and to her. She gave it an owl biscuit.

“Hogwarts, Professor Snape,” she said and the bird took off.

She only had to wait hours for an answer. The owl was perched on the ledge of the entry window as she went down for her Friday breakfast shift.

 

8 October, 1998

Dear Miss Granger,

You may take your Potions exam. Please enroll in seventh year Potions at Hogwarts or another wizarding school and complete the requirements. You will be allowed to take your NEWT at the end of the course.

Sincerely,

Professor Severus T. Snape

 

AGH! Blast that irritating man.

 

She mentally composed her response all day. She went out of her way to be subservient and kind to all the customers as if to prove that every single one of them would have granted her permission because she was a generous, capable person, and so say all of them. Her hard work paid off in extra tips, enough to keep many owls in as many biscuits as this would take.

 

8 October, 1998

 

Dear Professor Snape,

I find that enrolling in school is not an option for me. As I explained to the Headmistress, I was left destitute after the war. I moved to Covington to be close to university. I work full-time to live and to save money for NEWT and university fees. I have been granted dispensation for all classes except Potions. As I plan to make a career in the field of healing research, Potions is a must.

Surely there is some joy that I am hundreds of miles away from your dungeon and not annoying you daily.

I ask you to reconsider.

Sincerely,

H. Granger

 

She received another letter the next morning.

 

9 October 1998

Dear Miss Granger,

I fear either I am not communicating adequately, or you are being obtuse.

The policies of other professors are not my concern. 

I understand that a life of privilege and continued preferential treatment has given you a perception of entitlement. I will endeavor to be more clear.

You may take your NEWT if you complete the requirements stated in my last correspondence.

Further reply is not necessary.

 

Sincerely,

Professor Severus T. Snape

 

Oh, he would receive a further reply whether he wanted one or not. Saturday’s shift found her in a much less obsequious mood than the previous day. Saturday, she was snappish and impatient, and Marilyn had to take her aside and make sure she was feeling all right. She tried to put it out of her head, but it kept lurking in the corner.

Entitled? Entitled to lose a year of her life, to lose her parents. Entitled to love someone who didn’t love her back. Entitled to serve coffee and tea and eggs and sandwiches and chips all day long without magic. Entitled to be so exhausted she could barely read at the end of the day, let alone study for exams she couldn’t even afford to take.

And entitled to no thanks whatsoever for life-saving medical interventions, either, she thought indignantly.

 

9 October, 1998

 

Dear Professor Snape,

What if I completed the course via correspondence? I have access to a facility where I could brew.

Sincerely,

H. Granger

 

She pictured herself brewing in the kitchen in the middle of the night. Marilyn and Bob had given her permission to use the kitchen when they weren’t there.

 

11 October, 1998

Dear Miss Granger,

 

No.

 

Sincerely,

Professor Severus T. Snape

 

That was the extent of his replies from then on. Every time she could think of a cogent argument, she would write him, and every time she would get another identical reply. She wondered why he didn’t just ignore her. Perhaps he had to record correspondence of the like. She enjoyed receiving the letters anyway, so she took some pleasure in that. She had been fascinated with the Half-Blood Prince during sixth year, and the methodical, linear scrawl made her smile every time she saw it.

 

16 October, 1998

Dear Professor Snape,

I am funding my NEWTs myself with money I make at my incredibly humbling job. You would be astonished at my current level of humility. I am saving the school a considerable amount by choosing this path. You may not realize how dear the testing fees are. They are a significant amount. This represents real savings Hogwarts can funnel into other worthy expenditures. It is something to ponder.

Humbly,

H. Granger

 

17 October, 1998

Dear Miss Granger,

No.

Sincerely,

Professor Severus T. Snape

 

At the end of October, Bob started having problems with his kidneys. A hospital stay and an operation would be required. Marilyn planned to close the café for a few weeks, which sent Hermione into a panic over lost wages.

A possible solution came to her in the middle of the night. She explained to Marilyn the next morning that she might know of a good substitute, but she would have to take the day to make arrangements. Marilyn let her go. Hermione went to the alley and apparated to the Burrow.

“Molly,” she called as she approached the kitchen door from the garden not wanting to startle her.

“Hermione! What a surprise!”

“Molly, what do you say to a challenge?”

Hermione transfigured Molly’s magical kitchen to one that looked remarkably like the one at the café.

“You are the best cook I’ve ever met,” Hermione told her.

“Thank you, dear, but didn’t you say your mum hated to cook?”

“Yes, but I lived at Hogwarts for years and ate many meals prepared by very talented elves. None of those meals…”

“Hermione, why are you here? What are you doing?”

“I think you are a fantastic cook not just because you’ve mastered charms, but because you know exactly when to apply those charms. I think you could cook just as well on this equipment. Do you have any eggs?”

She spent the next two hours showing Molly how to regulate heat on a cooker. How to manipulate a deep-fry. How to make toast and porridge the Muggle way.

“Molly, my employers are a wonderful couple who have taken me in. They need your help.”

“I’ve never had a real job.”

“Ridiculous, Molly. You worked for the Order for years.”

“I will make a mess of this.”

“You will have three assistants who are patient and helpful.” _Or so help me I will murder them_ , she thought.

“Arthur would love it,” Molly said, smiling.

“It’s temporary; Bob should be back in a month. It’s just for the breakfast shift anyway, there is another cook that comes in for lunch. You would be back here mid-morning. It _is_ early days; we start at five.”

“I don’t sleep well anyway. I can’t remember a time I’ve slept after four. You’ll tell them to be patient with me?”

“Yes.”

“And I can’t handle the money.”

“No, you won’t have to. Could you try it out on Monday?”

“I will, Hermione. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet.”

Hermione apparated back to town. When there was a lull, she poured a cup of tea for herself and Marilyn and pointed her to a booth.

“I have someone. She’s an astonishingly good cook, but she’s sheltered and rather damaged, so we must be careful.”

“It’s a stressful job, I don’t have to tell you, Hermione.”

“She can handle stress. She’s cooked for crowds for years; it’s just certain things one takes for granted, like the cash register, for example, she won’t be able to handle. Also, the cooker is different than the one she’s used to, so I will prepare the staff to help her. She’ll be fine very quickly.”

“I won’t ask what’s happened; but I assume it’s like what’s happened to you?”

“In some ways. Molly recently lost her son.”

“Oh, dear,” Marilyn had such kind eyes. “Of course, bring her on, she sounds fascinating.”

Hermione returned to the Burrow on Sunday to run through a few egg and toast drills and to help Molly transfigure some appropriate work clothes. Molly looked adorable in her new denims and trainers, and predictably, Arthur found the whole thing a fantastic adventure.

Her first Monday shift was touch and go for a while, but Hermione explained Bob’s absence to the regulars, and the food, when it eventually arrived, more than made up for the wait. Molly only broke down in tears twice, which was better than Hermione’s first day had been.

They sat down with tea after the breakfast rush.

“Go home and take a bath and decide if you want to return tomorrow,” Hermione told her.

“I have to conquer the fryer,” Molly said with purpose and determination.

Hermione felt like she had accomplished something truly worthwhile for the first time in months. She was feeling so confident, she took another crack at the Potions campaign.

 

26 October, 1998

 

Dear Professor Snape,

Happy Halloween a few days early.

Enclosed is a sample I brewed of carare cutem from the seventh-year curriculum. I tried it out on a cook at the café with a minor knife wound on her finger, and it worked like a well brewed potion should.

How is the quality compared to the students in your seventh-year class?  I have such a sound foundation in Potions, particularly in years one through five, that I can understand the material and complete the brewing as if I were enrolled in your class.

Resourcefully,

H. Granger

 

27 October, 1998

Dear Miss Granger,

No.

Sincerely,

Professor Severus T. Snape

 

 

 

 


	5. Chapter Three:  October 1998

**Chapter Three**

**October 1998**

 

After four weeks at school, Hermione was settling into familiar routines. She felt conspicuously old, she always had, really, but her nineteenth birthday made it worse. There were only a few students back from her year wanting to read for their NEWTs, and none of them had been particularly close friends with Hermione anyway.

The first night back, Hermione had felt as if she had made a profound mistake returning to Hogwarts. It was too soon after the battle. Although a great effort had been made to repair and restore, evidence of the destruction was everywhere. The new Headmistress put on a brave face and gave a commendable speech, but the Great Hall was half empty. There were about a third as many first years as there had been in Hermione’s class. The Head Table looked traumatized.

Professor Snape would be back at his old post in Potions, but he was not present at the sorting or the feast. The Headmistress acknowledged him and told the students he would be teaching again soon.

Hermione had her own room in Gryffindor Tower. She never enjoyed rooming with Lavender and Parvati, but the room seemed empty without them. Ginny graciously offered Hermione a place with her, but she had always shared with three girls from her year. That didn’t feel right, either. Hermione reminded herself how ideal for studying a single would be.

While the castle looked different after the battle, she soon realized her days were just as they had been for years. Same halls, same stairs, same classrooms with mostly the same professors, same long afternoons in the library, same meals at the same tables, just missing Harry and Ron, whose absence she felt keenly.

She was taking the maximum number of classes, so she was too busy to be miserable most of the time. Professor Flitwick taught in the dungeon that first week. There weren’t many seventh years enrolled in Potions, and it was a quiet introduction. Professor Flitwick admitted he was out of practice in the subject, so they relied primarily on the text.

On Monday of the second week, Professor Snape was at the head table for breakfast. Hermione gasped when she saw him. The long hair was gone, shorn in hospital apparently. He had about a half inch of hair growing back on his scalp. This rendered his face wholly visible for the first time in Hermione’s memory. His dark eyes looked huge and sunken. They had prominent black rings around them. His skin was grey and it stretched against his cheekbones. He had lost at least a stone, probably more, from his already thin frame. His neck was bandaged, and Hermione was terribly curious about what his scar looked like. She had pictured it many times in her mind, and hoped it was straight and orderly and soon to fade. In place of his formal, old-fashioned attire, he wore a simple black robe closed in the front. He was drinking out of a teacup and had a blank expression, not reacting to the breakfast rush.

The seventh-years had Potions right before lunch on Mondays. Hermione had already attended a full morning of classes, but she had been nervously anticipating Potions since she’d seen Professor Snape in the Great Hall.

She entered the dungeon in a crowd of students. Professor Snape was seated behind his desk at the front of the classroom. He had the same blank expression she had seen earlier, and for a moment, Hermione was worried that he wasn’t functioning well enough to teach the class.

She had reached the table where she had always worked when he saw her. His expression changed immediately to palpable annoyance, exactly how he had always looked at her every time she had encountered him, in and out of the classroom. She felt enormous relief that manifested itself by a beaming grin she flashed him. He narrowed his eyes at her and whacked the board behind him with his wand.

Immediately the blackboard filled with instructions. Professor Flitwick had not assigned the next chapter for them to read before this class, but Hermione had done so anyway. While the rest of the class had to familiarize themselves with the introduction of alternatives to veritas serum for investigative purposes, Hermione was ready to go, and gathered her materials and equipment.

She felt Professor Snape’s eyes on her as she worked, but she used it as motivation instead of being intimidated. Three-quarters of the hour into the class, Professor Snape spoke for the first time. His voice had the same, low timbre as always, but it was noticeably weaker. The volume was very low, and the words sounded obstructed and raspy.

“What are the advantages of using a more acidic compound?”

Hermione had to practically restrain herself from answering. This had been the thesis of the chapter. No one raised his or her hand; everyone looked at her. She kept brewing, her hands at work and not waving in the air.

“Mr. Meadows?”

Simon cleared his throat. “It makes it more lethal, sir?”

“More lethal. Yes, because death is the preferred outcome of any interrogation.”

His delivery was so dry, one might have thought Simon had answered correctly. Hermione kept her head down. Her potion had one more step, and it would be complete.

“Miss Abbott?”

“It makes it…um, it helps with…I’m sorry, sir, I don’t know.”

Hermione’s potion suddenly turned the colour it should be when finished. She flicked her wand immediately and hit a stasis, then started cleaning her work station, trying very hard not to draw attention to herself.

“Miss Granger,” Professor Snape said with a weary sigh. He sounded as if he were saying her name under duress.

“Acid accelerates the reaction when consumed. It makes it faster acting,” she said as neutrally as possible.

“But?”

“But the effects stay in the body for a much shorter time than traditional veritas.”

“Advantages?”

“It would be highly effective in time sensitive cases, kidnapping or…” she searched for the wizarding equivalent of a bomb on a timer, “imminent threats, or in cases in which the death of the subject is…impending.”

“Limitations?”

“It is dangerous to re-dose the subject. It would most likely render them incapable of speech anyway,” she thought of his current vocal trouble and wanted to punish herself like an errant house elf. “Sir,” she finished quietly.

“Yes,” he rasped out. “You have five minutes to complete your brewing,” he told the class.

She continued to clean her station quietly. When he called time, she brought the potion down to his desk. He looked in her cauldron and then looked at her, but he said nothing. As others placed their work, she noticed that hers was the only one that had achieved the shade of green he had described in detail on the board.

“Dismal results all around, how surprising. Two feet analyzing your mistakes today for next time. Miss Granger, expound on the discussion citing specific examples from the literature. That is all.”

That was the last day he called on her in class. From then on, he cycled through the twenty-three other seventh-years, day after day, usually with unsatisfactory results. She almost always knew the answer he was going for—the few times he stumped her, she was certain he would pick that opportunity to finally acknowledge her, but no, it was as if she wasn’t there. He ran the class the same way for the first few weeks. He stayed at his desk, observing from there. He was quiet for most of the time and then questioned them at the end.

The day they brewed a healing potion called carare cutem, Lucinda Hall was stirring the potion in her cauldron, and took her hand of the vessel to grab an ingredient. The velocity of her stirring caused her cauldron to leave the table and crash to the floor. More than half the people in the room, Hermione included, immediately took cover under a table. Hermione had drawn her wand defensively without even thinking. She looked up to see the professor undaunted by the sound and ensuing reaction from the class.

With obvious effort, he walked to Lucinda’s table and scowled down at her.

“Stop cowering and clean, Miss Hall. Ten points from Slytherin for wasting time and supplies.”

The students on the floor started to emerge from under the tables to resume their classwork. Professor Snape walked past Hermione’s station. She had knocked her book off the edge when she hit the floor. He stopped, and with his wand lightly in his right hand, he levitated the book back to the table. The carare cutem page was filled with her notes from the research she had done before the class, and she had been writing observations in the margins as she brewed the potion. He paused for just a moment to glance at the pages and then continued back to his desk.

Hermione started brewing again with shaky hands, but she was happy with the product. When she brought her cauldron to him at the end of the class, he peered inside it.

“Take it to the hospital wing, Miss Granger, and bottle it for the stores there,” he said and then turned away from her to sneer at the other students’ work. She felt herself flush with joy as she put her book in her bag and left the room with her cauldron.

Hermione conducted her usual mental post-class analysis as she walked to the hospital wing and then to the room with the stores. She found the little pots that were used to contain thicker healing potions like the cutem. With a little trowel, she scooped the substance into the pots and then sealed them per the specifications.

Professor Snape was still sardonic, impatient, and prickly to the extreme. But she never could have imagined him issuing a relatively fair consequence to a Slytherin—and he had even been a bit harsh on Lucinda; she had just made a careless error. Furthermore, he had NEVER acknowledged Hermione’s skill in Potions, as his request for her to proceed to the hospital wing surely had.  He seemed to be missing the seething resentment that was ever present when she had encountered him before.

She placed her product neatly on the appropriate shelf with great pride and then scrubbed out her cauldron quickly before she was late to her next class. She had missed lunch, but this had been far more satisfying.

As the weeks went on, Professor Snape gained strength. His bandage was finally off, and his neck was clearly covered with a glamour. Hermione remained curious about what it looked like and had to try not to stare at it as he lectured.

His hair was growing out slowly and still looked patchy and uneven. It was coming back significantly greyer. He had always looked older than he was—when Hermione and her friends worked out he was the same age as Harry’s parents and realized how young he was, they had been shocked—he wasn’t even forty. Besides the hair, though, he was looking much healthier. The dark circles were fading from around his eyes, and he was slowly losing that fragile bird quality he’d had when he first came back.

He was beginning to move more assuredly throughout the classroom. This was not done in his former robe-sweeping bat of the dungeon style. For one, his simple robe didn’t give in to sweeping much. He would walk with a purpose to his target, lean against a work station, give some caustic advice to the brewer, and then move on. He never stopped by Hermione’s table.

At the end of the class, he would tailor the writing assignment to the deficiency of responses he had received. Often when Hermione turned in her work, he would modify hers slightly. He rarely said her name, but when she would place her cauldron on his desk, he would peer into the vessel and then very quietly ask her to focus on something beyond describing the uses of the potion and explaining what the class had missed.

This little departure would send her into the library for hours analyzing the most minute details of the potion and the theories behind it. She mercilessly limited herself to the strict length requirements of the assignment when she could easily write five times more. The bit of tacit approval he had given her stoked her desire to please him. She was terrified of annoying him.

He would sometimes would engage her in the margins of her returned papers, and she lived for that red scrawl. Sometimes he wrote nothing, and it would send her into a funk until she had another assignment in which to immerse herself. Not quite as frustrating but still disappointing, he would sometimes write one word at the very bottom of the page; something like _Really?_ Or _Imbecilic_ or just _No._ She fought the urge to see him after class for further analysis. She was confident she wouldn’t like the response.

As far as she could tell, she was the only student who loved Potions class. Ginny, who wallowed in anger directed at Professor Snape, was ready to drop Potions at the end of the term. Hermione stopped herself from trying to defend him. She hadn’t been there during his tenure as Headmaster, and Ginny was steadfast in her opinion anyway, and Harry defended Snape vigorously.

The Headmistress let Hermione and Ginny leave every Saturday afternoon for the Burrow, and they would spend the night there each week. Harry and Ron were well into their Auror training and had fantastic stories about that and life in London. Molly beamed from her end of the table at Saturday night dinner and Sunday morning breakfast. Hermione slept with Ron in his room while Ginny and Harry took hers next door.

Perhaps being away from her during the week made Ron appreciate her more. He listened to her, and laughed with her, and had sex with her when she initiated it.

Charlie came home about every other weekend; Percy about once a month. The last Saturday in October, everyone was back at the Burrow. Molly made a Halloween themed autumn feast. When they were tucking into pumpkin tart at the end of the meal. Bill tapped on his glass with his spoon.

An announcement was hardly necessary, as Fluer was radiating light even more than usual. Hermione had never seen her look happier, and Bill was properly chuffed as well. Molly’s face lit up.

“When?” she called out joyfully.

“This summer; we’ve only just found out, but we had to tell the news!” Fleur was effervescent.

Molly managed to sweep both Bill and Fleur into her embrace. Arthur was chortling gleefully, all the Weasleys plus Harry and Hermione were toasting and hugging each other in turn. In the midst of the melee, Percy became truly a part of the family once again.

It was difficult to return to school that Sunday afternoon, but Hermione was engrossed in her studies—Potions, but the rest as well—and was already studying for her NEWTs in May. Her vision for the future was clear: married to Ron, each with a satisfying career, two children, and joyful weekends at the Burrow with the growing family.

 


	6. Chapter Four: December 1998

**Chapter Four**

**December 1998**

 

Bob returned to the diner in early December. Molly had become such a popular figure that she continued to cook the breakfast shift, which allowed Bob to ease back into work.

Molly had become remarkably adept in the kitchen; Hermione suspected she was perfecting wandless charms as much as believing that Molly had really mastered the Muggle equipment. At any rate, her breakfast services packed in the customers.

Hermione had given up on her goal of entering university for the winter term. She couldn’t yet afford the fees for her NEWTs, and Professor Snape hadn’t changed his mind by the November deadline. She made an appointment with the department head of Magical Creatures to discuss her options.

The professor was an old wizard called Leonard Lewis. He perused her Hogwarts file for several minutes before he looked up at her over his half-glasses that were perched at the end of his nose.

“We would be happy to have you, Miss Granger, assuming your examinations fall in the pattern you have established here,” his slightly bowed finger indicated her file.

“It will be mid-summer before I have secured the funding I will need, but I am also lacking dispensation for the potions NEWT…”

“Ah, yes, Snape,” Professor Lewis had said sounding as if he were tasting something terribly bitter. “I will override that. I’m not sure why Hogwarts continues to employ…”

“ _Professor_ Snape, sir, is an excellent teacher. I assure you I would not be qualified to sit for the NEWT if I hadn’t had years of his instruction. And he is also a war hero.”

She wasn’t even sure why she was compelled once again to defend the man, but there it was, pouring out of her.

“Yes, well, Miss Granger, I’m not sure why he refuses to give you permission, but as I said, we will override that.”

“Thank you, Professor.” She took back her file and fled before she talked him out of helping her.

Throughout the autumn, she had met Harry and Ron in London on several Saturday nights. They would go to the wizarding clubs with the people the boys had met during their training. Often, they would all apparate back to Covington with Hermione, and she would fix them a fry-up in the kitchen. They were all incredulous that Hermione had put Molly to work and enjoyed seeing the café. Fortunately, Molly was enjoying her job, saving Hermione from the _what were you thinking_ lectures.

“She has a place to go every day, and everyone loves her there, and not just the cooking, which is obviously first rate.” Hermione told them. 

She felt like an imposter the few times she tried the wizard university clubs there, but less so in the Muggle clubs where she sometimes recognized customers. The Muggle boys hit on her a bit and sometimes bought her pints. She avoided the alleyway snogging; she wasn’t interested in anything serious, and she was afraid it would lead to something she didn’t yet feel ready for.

The café was closed for the whole week of Christmas. Hermione studied for NEWTs for three days then apparated to the Burrow on Christmas Eve. It seemed like much longer than four months since they had all been together. Fleur was newly pregnant and looked a bit green, but Bill was strutting around proudly, and Arthur and Molly couldn’t be more excited. The big announcement had been in late October. Molly had told Hermione the next morning at work.

During this visit to the Burrow, Hermione realized that the family dynamic had changed. The anticipation of the baby had clearly brought healing to the group, including Percy, who had been fully welcomed back to the fold. Gone was the earlier awkwardness and eggshell walking. She started to question her place in this group. Except for Ron, they were unfailingly sweet and welcoming, but it was not the same.

Ron and Harry hadn’t been able to meet her Saturdays since late November, and Hermione was felt a bit pushed aside. Now at the Burrow, Ron was being an utter prat and wouldn’t talk to her or even look at her at dinner. She finally cornered Harry about it.

“What is up with him?”

“Hermione…” he hesitated. “You need to talk to him yourself. I can’t…” He looked as uncomfortable as he had during the Lavender era when Hermione would try to elicit information from him.

“It’s a girl…a woman, right?”

“Hermione…”

“Is he already in love…?”

“You need to talk to him.”

“He won’t talk to me, Harry!”

“Go find him right now. You can be…rather persuasive, Hermione.”

Ron was playing chess with Charlie. She waited until Ron had won, and Charlie went to fetch another beer before she began.

“Just tell me what’s going on with you, Ron. If you met someone, you can tell me. I want you to be happy.”

“I did. Meet someone,” he was studying the chess pieces carefully.

Hermione’s heart sank to her feet. She thought she was prepared to hear, but she had to use all her will-power not to break down in tears in front of him.

“Is she smart? Is she lovely? Is she worthy of you?”

“Yes, to all three. She’s too good for me, I reckon, just like you. It’s Willow Pruitt. She was a year ahead of us, Ravenclaw?”

Hermione felt another stab to her heart. Willow was brilliant in a confident, calm way. She gave off an air of being completely together all the time. One time Hermione had experienced a meltdown on a bad day during year five. She had burst into tears in the girls’ lavatory. Willow had emerged from a stall with a look of pity and horror on her face, and had supplied Hermione with tissue, all the time exhibiting an air of mortification and superiority.

Willow was the kind of person who made perfect grades but was not emotionally invested enough to really care. She wasn’t devastatingly gorgeous, but she had perfectly straight brown hair, perfect teeth, large green eyes under perfectly groomed eyebrows, and stylish glasses.

She had been on the periphery of Dumbledore’s Army, perfectly competent in all the skills but Hermione never remembered her speaking at any of the meetings. She had been in the group with Cho who had left in protest over the Marietta incident, which Hermione would and could defend to this day.

“Was she in the final battle? I don’t remember her then, but I don’t remember much aside from us,” Hermione asked him, and saw a flash of annoyance immediately light his face.

“Yes, of course, Hermione. She was defending the school just outside the Great Hall. She barely avoided Greyback.”

“I wasn’t accusing her of anything, Ron,” Hermione tried to keep the hurt out of her voice.

“No, I know, it’s just weird talking to you about this.”

“It shouldn’t be. I’m happy for you. Bring her back to the café for midnight breakfast next time.”

Ron took a second before he answered. “I think she’s a bit intimidated by you,” he said finally.

Hermione laughed louder than she felt was appropriate, and then clamped her hand over her mouth in an apology. “She has no reason to be, my goodness, Ron, it’s the other way around.”

“No, she’s very nice, very down to earth, you know.”

_Yes, of course_.

She let Ron out of her clutches and returned to his room—he was bunking with Percy and Charlie—and cried herself to sleep.

In the morning, she and Molly outdid themselves with Christmas breakfast, showing off their skills. Hermione’s Christmas jumper was black with a huge orange dragon, representing the colours and symbol of the university. For the first year Hermione could remember, Molly had knitted one for herself. It was pink with a chef’s hat, spatula, and wooden spoon.

They were frying potatoes and onions, and the whole house smelled delicious.

“Ron told me about Willow. Have you met her?” she asked Molly.

“Twice. He brought her to dinner. I didn’t want to say anything before… I’m sorry, Hermione.”

“Oh, no, that’s quite alright. I’m glad I know. Is it serious enough for a jumper?” she asked lightly.

“I made her Ravenclaw blue with a bright green willow.”

“Nice.”

“She works on the same floor as Arthur, at the census and records department. They share a staff room with Muggle Relations.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that.”

“She’s an up and comer.”

“She was very good in school.”

Molly didn’t say anything but she hit a quick stasis on the potatoes and took Hermione in her arms.

“I really am fine,” said Hermione through fresh tears.

“I know dear,” Molly let her go and went back to work cracking eggs. Hermione dished up sausages and rashers of bacon, and they started sending bowls into the dining room while the toast came out of the oven to be buttered. Molly had found a hidden jar of blackberry jam from the summer, and they entered the dining room triumphantly.

After an embarrassing collection of accolades, the family tucked in.

“Hermione how is university admission coming?” Arthur asked.

“I’ll have the money by July,” Hermione swallowed a bite of potato and egg. “That’s enough time to take the tests and enroll for the autumn term.”

“Hermione, I would have given you the money,” Harry said for the millionth time.

“I know, I know, and I thank you. Anyway, Professor Snape didn’t relent. I finally wore them down, though, and they’re going to let me take the Potions NEWT in July over his objections.”

“That has not slowed down her effort there, though.” Molly added.

“Of course not—I sent him three diverse potions using mistletoe for Christmas. I received the usual response, but he’s warming to me, I can feel it.”

Ginny snorted. “I am so finished with that man. And Potions,” she said joyfully.

“Ginerva, I think that’s quite short-sighted…” Arthur started in.

“Yes, Dad, I know, and you can rail about it more tomorrow, but not on Christmas, okay? Just let me enjoy being free of that git and his dungeon.”

Hermione had to restrain herself from defending him at the Christmas breakfast table. She was frustrated with him as well. She viewed him as a pen-pal, though, even if his side of the correspondence was rather limited.

After breakfast, she and Molly spent the rest of the morning in the kitchen preparing for Christmas dinner. Then Molly went upstairs for a nap, and Hermione curled up on one side of the sofa with a new book on global wizardry. Fleur was on the other side dozing. Early pregnancy was clearly taking its toll. The rest of the group was playing Ron’s new trivia game, and very soon Hermione was drawn into it as well. She tried not to gloat when she beat them all.

Dinner was at four, and Molly had outdone herself as usual. After a triumphant pudding, Harry tapped on his glass with shaking hands.

“Ginerva…”

“Oh, no, Harry,” she gasped.

“No?” he looked at her in a panic.

“Never mind, sorry,” tears were forming in her eyes, and Hermione felt a huge lump in her midsection rise to her throat. Everyone at the table either had mouths agape or had eyes brimming with tears or both.

“I love you beyond…”

Such a great start, Hermione thought, but then Harry stalled.

“Well, beyond anything. I love your family, and I want to be with you…be a part of this forever, if you will have me.”

“Yes,” she said, which made him laugh.

“I’m not quite finished,” he put on a slightly annoyed tone, but his eyes betrayed him. “Will you marry me, Ginny?”

“Yes, yes, yes!” She leaped from her seat toward him, and he pulled a platinum ring with a diamond of impressive size and quality from a small box and placed it on her finger.

Hermione wondered just how much he had spent on it. It _was_ lovely, but it probably cost three times more than she would need to take her exams. _He offered to pay_ , she admonished herself and tried to squelch her resentment at the whole scene.

The room erupted in joyful chaos. Hermione hugged everyone, ending with Ron, who she held for a bit longer. It was impossible not to think what might have been, and her joyful tears were tainted by more than a bit of sorrow. He seemed to understand, and held on to her, too. But these thoughts gave way to the celebration.

Bill produced some champagne and toasts rang out.

“Congratulations! Love and happiness!” Hermione uttered incoherently. She realized just then she was now the only one in the room who wasn’t really family.


	7. Chapter Four: December 1998

 

**Chapter Four**

**December 1998**

 

Hermione woke up Christmas morning plastered against Ron’s body in his boyhood room. She put her arm around his waist, and he sleepily brought her in to his chest.

“Happy Christmas, Ronald,” she whispered.

“Happy Christmas, ‘Mione,” he replied and then fell back asleep. She lay with her head on his chest enjoying the closeness until he awoke again so they could open the packages that contained their jumpers.

Ron’s was elegant navy blue with his name and _Department of Auror_ embroidered in red on the shoulder. Hermione’s was pink with a football, the Hogwarts Express, and a pony on the front.

“I adore your mum,” she said and embraced Ron as a surrogate.

“She outdid herself again,” he agreed.

Hermione and Ginny had taken a portkey to London just after they had finished their last exams. They surprised the boys by channeling their inner Mollies and having dinner on the table when Ron and Harry arrived at Twelve Grimmauld Place after the day’s training at the Ministry.

It seemed so grown-up and so exciting to be living together almost. Ron seemed happier than he had in the summer, and Hermione felt triumphant in her decision to push through the hard times.

They had apparated to the Burrow together as a foursome on Christmas Eve.

Christmas was going to be different this year; the loss of Fred was still so fresh. It was hardly mentioned anymore, but that was due to the discomfort of the subject rather than an indication that people had moved on. George sometimes would bring Fred up in conversation, and it seemed as if he did so provocatively—to challenge his family’s discomfort. Usually, though, people deferred to protecting Molly by letting her take the lead.

Hermione spent a great deal of time in the kitchen with her as she didn’t feel proficient in household charms, and she wanted to learn from the master. Molly was so fast, it was hard to keep up, but Hermione followed her around like an apprentice.

They had a glorious breakfast, a restful but fun day in which she was crowned trivia queen, and a masterpiece of a Christmas dinner. Fleur looked as if she would fall asleep on her plate, and George was quieter than usual, but all in all it was the typical Weasley holiday.

“Hermione, Ginny, how are the classes coming, then?” Arthur asked.

“Everything is so fulfilling this year,” Hermione gushed. “Maybe because you must be without something to really appreciate it, but I just love it all.”

Harry, Ginny, and Ron snorted in perfect unison.

“Ginerva,” Arthur ignored the reaction. “How about you?”

“Fine, Dad,” Ginny sighed. “Potions is a nightmare, but what else is new, and I’m dropping it, so all the better.”

“Ginny, I fear that is rather short-sighted…” Arthur began.

“Dad, not on Christmas, please. You’re not there, you don’t know what it’s like, and I’m so thoroughly finished with that git and his dungeon.”

Hermione had to restrain herself not to defend Professor Snape, as it would do no good. The time spent on Potions was what she cherished most at school. Every assignment she turned in represented hours of meticulous study and painstaking writing. She examined every word, trying to elicit a positive response from Professor Snape, and she was occasionally rewarded with comments in the margins she could quote from memory.

_Astute analysis here, but continue to study the effects of the heat variation. What would be the result of higher flame with a shorter brew? Something to experiment._

She and Ginny would never agree on this subject, so she just looked down at her turnip mash and pushed some gravy with her fork.

 After a delicious pudding that glowed without an actual flame, Harry cleared his throat and tapped on his glass.

“Ginerva…”

“Oh, no, Harry,” Ginny gasped.

“No?” he looked at her in a panic.

“Never mind, sorry,” she breathed in deeply and looked at Harry as if they were the only two in the room.

Hermione felt the blood rising all the way to her hairline. This was happening. She had fanaticized about this so many times while trying to fall asleep in her four-poster in Gryffindor Tower.

“I love you beyond…well, beyond anything.”

Ginny let a little sob escape, which urged Harry on. “I love your family, and I want to be with you…be a part of this forever, if you will have me.”

“Yes,” she said and he laughed.

“I’m not quite finished,” he put on a slightly annoyed tone, but his eyes betrayed him. “Will you marry me, Ginny?”

“Yes, yes, yes!” She leaped from her seat toward him, and he pulled a beautiful, perfect platinum diamond ring from a small box and placed it on her finger.

The room erupted in joyful chaos. Hermione hugged Harry and then Ginny, and all the brothers except Ron, and then Molly. Her heart was beating so fast, and she dared to hope that Ron might step up next. She looked at him for signs of nervousness.

Ron was acting as if he had known this was coming. He seemed happy, but not overly so, and it seemed to Hermione that he was avoiding her eyes. She pushed down those thoughts.

“Ronald,” she said as she walked to him and took him next to her so she could speak to him quietly. “How could you not tell me he was going to…?”

This would give him a chance to transition the scene and take charge if he wanted to. He declined.

“I couldn’t spoil the surprise, could I?” He removed himself from her embrace and took a champagne glass that Arthur was passing out as Bill popped a cork.

It was clear that he was not planning to propose today. She bit back a wave of disappointment, took a glass from Arthur, and plastered on a smile, determined not to give anything away.

Molly had fire in her eyes, though, clearly directed at Ron.

 

On the morning of New Year’s Eve, Hermione woke up in Ron’s bed at the Grimmauld Place house having started her period while she was sleeping. She had practically hemorrhaged all over her side of the bed. She made her way as quickly as she could to the bath to clean herself up while doubled over in pain. She changed her clothes and put the stained ones in the bath. She soaked them, scrubbed them, and wrung them out neatly, cast some cleansing charms, and hung them on a bar before she returned to the bedroom.

Ron was still asleep, thank Merlin. She found a phial in her bag and drank its contents down. She took a small pillow and cast a warming spell on it, sat in the corner of the room on an upholstered chair Ron usually used for laundry, and pressed the pillow to her lower belly.

This was her third period since the end of the chaos. They had stopped about half way through the quest; she wasn’t sure if it was because she had lost so much weight, or because of stress, or a combination of both. When Madame Lestrange had cursed her at the Malfoy’s, the witch had put her wand right at Hermione’s right hip bone. She had felt the crutiatis radiating from there. When her period finally returned at the beginning of November, it was completely different from how it had been before. It was much heavier and more painful—close to debilitating the first day. When it returned, she had staggered into the hospital wing to see if there was something to help, and Madam Pomfrey had given her a potion called balsamum ventris brewed specifically for menstrual problems. It was a miracle cure, and if Hermione could time it right and take it just before her period arrived, it would make her life easier. Unfortunately, her cycle had fluctuated by a few days each time.

Ron stirred in the bed. “Hey,” he mumbled to her.

“Would you please roll out of bed that way,” she pointed to the door, “go straight to take a shower, and not ask me for an explanation?” she implored him.

“Okay,” he said, still half asleep. He stumbled out of the room, and she removed the soiled linen, changing it with some clean bedclothes from the wardrobe.

This new situation concerned her greatly. She was becoming increasingly afraid that Lestrange had seriously damaged her. Ron wouldn’t want to marry someone that couldn’t bear children. She tried to put it out of her mind, but it was always lurking.

Ron was taking her to dinner that night at a very nice restaurant in Wizarding London. It was the first formal date they had ever had, and Hermione had transfigured her black dress robes into a garment that resembled a cocktail dress and straightened her long hair.

They ordered a whole bottle of wine and drank most of it. The food was more elegant than she had eaten since her childhood when she would occasionally go to very nice restaurants with her parents.

After dinner, Ron reached into his robe and pulled out a topaz ring set in yellow gold. It was perfect for her colouring, and Hermione adored it on sight.

“So…you want to get married, then?”

Hermione couldn’t speak but nodded and looked at him through happy tears, shoving down all her anxiety. 


	8. Chapter Five: March 1999

**Chapter Five**

**March 1999**

 

Hermione took a portkey from the university to London with several other witches and wizards dressed in their finest.

They arrived in the grand foyer of the Ministry, which was already quite full. Hermione searched desperately for a familiar face. She finally lit on Harry and felt relief, only to be jolted with a stab of pain when she realized he was standing with Ron, Arthur, and Willow Pruitt. It was clearly her group, so she took in a strengthening breath and walked over. She hadn’t seen any of them since Christmas. Harry and Ron had stopped coming by for late night breakfast, and she had been too exhausted to take Molly up on her frequent offers of dinner at the Burrow.

She had cut her hair just after Christmas. It was now in a blunt bob that hung just at her shoulders. She had charmed it that night to be slightly wavy but to have about half of the volume and none of the frizz. She was wearing a tight black “robe” that she had transfigured from an evening dress she found at a charity shop. It had sleeves to the elbow and a low, square neck-line, corseting the tops of her breasts to two little pale moons contrasting with the dark fabric. The tight skirt ended just below the knee. She wore high-heeled shoes with big, black bows in back. Her eyes were lined dramatically in black, and her lips were deep rust. She had transfigured the beaded bag to be a small black and silver clutch, in which held her wand and notes for her speech.

Harry looked at her as she was approaching, and she realized that he didn’t recognize her immediately, and that he was checking her out for a second until a look of embarrassment flashed across his face.

“Hermione!” he stuttered.

“Harry,” she air-kissed him on the cheek to avoid a lipstick incident.

“You look…nice,” he said.

“Thanks, likewise.”

“Hermione, you remember Willow Pruitt?” Ron stepped forward.

“Of course,” Hermione said in her friendliest tone. “Hi, Willow,” and put out her hand, which Willow shook.

“Hello, Hermione.” Willow looked perfectly appropriate for the occasion, of course. Just so…appropriate. She was wearing an expensive looking, elegant set of deep red robes. Her hair was pulled into an expertly twisted knot at the back of her head. Her makeup was subtle, and she wasn’t wearing her glasses. She had her hand loosely resting in Ron’s elbow.

Hermione felt instantly ridiculous, as if she had tried too hard to be sexy and just looked foolish. As if she were clueless about how to present herself appropriately. Throughout the large space there were clusters of hovering flutes of champagne, and she grabbed one gratefully, only to catch Willow looking at her out of the side of her left eye. Hermione sighed and took a generous swig.

“Are Molly and Ginny on their way?”

“Molly is,” Arthur said.

“Ginny doesn’t have permission to leave,” Harry said in an annoyed tone.

“Really? Not to see her fiancée receive his Order of Merlin? And her brother?” Hermione said incredulously.

“Too many faculty members must be here, apparently. The whole seventh year is on duty.”

“That’s awful,” Hermione moved so she was standing near him. She was looking forward to seeing Ginny, but at least she wouldn’t be the only one without a date. “How is your speech?”

“I wrote down a few notes; I plan to wing it.”

“Shocking,” Hermione dead-panned. She, of course, had outlined it, written it long hand, and then condensed it to several cards. She had practiced it at least twice a day for the past two weeks.

“I still don’t see how Ron escaped having to make one,” Harry said loudly enough for his friend to hear.

“Easy, I knew ‘Mione would cover it,” Ron laughed.

“Ronald,” Hermione chided him.

“They only wanted one for the first-class people, and one for the second classers. You should talk to Snape to see how he pawned it off on you, Mate,” Ron said.

“ _Professor_ Snape. Flat-out refused, would be my guess,” said Hermione. “Second classers forever,” she clinked Ron’s glass and enjoyed the moment of being a little club of two before Willow pulled him closer.

They certainly looked and moved like a fully established couple. Hermione was surprised not to see a ring on her finger. Ron in his formal robes looked more handsome than she had ever seen him and years older than he had that summer. His dark red hair looked as if it had been cut that day and was combed away from his face. She made herself stop staring at him, Willow was far too sharp not to notice, however clueless Ron could be.

Hermione had been lonely all winter without weekend visits from her friends. She walked to the Muggle clubs on Saturday nights, mostly to nurse a gin and tonic and observe the scene rather than to hole up in her room. Young men, boys really, would sometimes buy her drinks and try to pick her up. She had snogged a few and even taken blokes home—twice now.

These encounters had been exciting, not for the sex, which both times had been awkward and unsatisfying, but for the risk and the feeling of power they gave her. She would obsess all day the next Sunday about whether this was disordered thinking, concluding that it probably was.

She felt as if her life was on hold until she could start university and begin advancing toward her goals. She was edging towards research and healing, specializing in non-human high ordered creatures. She’d had two more meetings with Professor Lewis, and while he hadn’t outright dismissed her plans, he didn’t seem to know quite what to make of her.

Harry and Ron were discussing a quidditch match they had seen the previous weekend, and Willow was clucking supportively, glued to Ron’s side. Hermione sipped her champagne and wished Molly were there.

The doors to the ballroom opened, and the crowd started moving in. Molly joined them as they scouted their table, which ended up being close to the front and lined with bunting to indicate the honorees. Hermione found her place card and saw she was seated between Willow, who was being helped into her seat by Ron, and Professor Snape.

The Professor swept into the room just as Hermione was taking her seat all on her own. From Ginny’s stories, she had expected someone who looked like an invalid with unkempt hair and ill-fitting robes. He had apparently recovered. His hair was still short, but clearly growing back to his preferred style though now with several streaks of silver. His face showed less stress and discomfort than she remembered, not just from the last time she had seen him, but in the whole time she had known him, which made him seem younger, despite the grey hair. He wore simple, formal robes that appeared black, but under the light were actually dark olive. He looked effortlessly elegant, not unlike Willow Pruitt. Hermione sighed once again.

A Ministry official pointed him to their table, and Hermione braced herself for his reaction when he realized whom he was seated next to. He glanced at the card and then looked at her, and had a moment of confusion before he recognized her.

“Hello, Sir.”

“Miss Granger,” he said levelly.

“Congratulations,” she said.

“Likewise.”

“Thank you. About my Potions NEWT…”

A look of incredulity flashed across his face.

“Joking, Professor.”

“No,” he said with a tiny smirk. He pulled out his chair and sat.

“They relented anyway. They will let me take it as soon as I can pay for it, which will be July.”

“Probably the plan from the beginning.”

“I suspect so.”

“How long have you known about this?” He was sipping from a glass of what looked like Old Ogdens.

“A while.” Months.

“So sending me your work has just been an exercise in…”

“It helped me focus my Potions study, and I was afraid you would miss the correspondence.”

He snorted. Willow, turned aside to focus on Ron at her right, practically had her back to Hermione. Molly and Harry were shooting her sympathetic glances periodically, but they were too far away at the grand table for conversation with her.

Salad plates appeared in front of them containing a medley of spring greens, jicama, and a garishly pink dressing. She dragged a forkful of lettuce across the viscous substance and chewed hesitantly.

_Grapefruit…rose…mint…and…_ She took one more bite. _Lemon infused with basil. Too clever by half._

Hermione took another bite and made a face.

“The mint is unfortunate,” Professor Snape said beside her.

 “Quite.” The jicama was practically tasteless. She put her fork down and hoped the main course fared better.

She soon found out as the salad plates were magically replaced by their larger, dinner counterparts. Pork medallions in a wine reduction, roasted potatoes with rosemary infused olive oil, and sautéed greens, chard she suspected and confirmed with a bite. She deemed it a more successful effort than the salad. She scraped up the lovely wine sauce with the potatoes and enjoyed every bite.

The wine goblets refilled themselves, but Hermione was careful not to drink much before her speech. She decided she would hit the club as soon as this was over, and probably drink herself silly and dance.

Dessert was baked Alaska with chocolate ice cream, a delightful choice, and she gobbled it in about four bites and licked her spoon.

Neither she nor Professor Snape attempted conversation. She was blocked completely from speaking to Ron or Harry by the wall of Willow’s back. She went over her notes mentally and counted down the minutes.

The awards program began promptly after the dessert plates had been whisked away. Digestifs and coffee appeared on the table; Hermione chose the latter.

The new Minister, Wesley Fincher, who had been one of Scrimgeour’s lackeys, rose to the podium at the dais. There had been palpable hope at the end of the war that Kingsley Shacklebolt would receive the nod and usher in a new era of reform, but that proved to be too much to expect from the government. _Meet my new boss_ , Hermione thought cynically of the expression her father had used when Major replaced Thatcher a few years ago. Hermione had to tamp down feelings of her dad, which would take her down a path she didn’t want travel right now.

The Minister gave a speech that included all the high points of the war, and honor, and heroic deeds by heroic people. He explained the qualifications of Order of Merlin, Second Class, and then narrated Hermione and Ron’s contributions to the war.

“By Harry Potter’s side throughout the struggle,” the Minister said and Hermione sensed Ron’s discomfort palpably even though Willow was blocking him from view. She suspected Ron would never forgive himself for that time he left them on the quest. “Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger proved themselves to be invaluable advisors and warriors in their own right.”

Hermione willed herself not to betray how uneasy this was making her. Professor Snape was still and silent beside her.

“Tonight we honor Hermione Jean Granger and Ronald Bilious Weasley with the award of Order of Merlin, Second Class!”

Hermione rose, speech notes clutched in her hand. Ron, bless him, offered his arm, and she took it for the walk to the dais. The Minister put a medal around her neck and then Ron’s, and then offered Hermione the podium.

Hermione thanked the Ministry for the honor on behalf of both herself and Ron, and then issued a disclaimer that the rest of the speech reflected her own views and not necessarily Ron’s. _He had his chance to write one_ , she billeted herself before she proceeded.

“We fought the war in the middle of a true existential crisis. Through the contributions of hundreds of you, who deserve this honor every bit as much as I do, and in many cases more so, we survived. Were we victorious? By some standard, we clearly were. Tom Riddle is dead, and the immediate threat has been vanquished. My fellow Muggle-borns and I are safe to live in our community without fear of death. Muggle society is no longer under constant threat. We have achieved a measure of peace.”

At that sentence she heard some mumbling behind her. _A measure?_

“I do not wish to minimize the value of what we accomplished. However, how peaceful, how victorious is a society that is still weighted in favour of the privileged and the few? No, blood-status is not what determines success in most cases, but who among us would claim that our society is truly one of equality, of liberty, of justice?

“Basic rights are denied to our non-human brethren every day. Our laws treat them no better than animals, than familiars, at worst, and as indentured servants at best. Our legal system, if it can even be labeled that, is weighted toward the powerful and traditional. New ideas are routinely dismissed, and living creatures, human and non-human alike, who represent ideas and policies deemed to be a threat are marginalized.”

She looked up at her table. Arthur and Harry looked horrified, Willow’s eyes were reflecting rage back to her, and Molly had her head down, but Hermione could detect a tiny smile. Professor Snape was the most impenetrable, of course, but he was looking right at her, and although she could be projecting, she sensed some pride in his eyes.

“The most foolish action we can take, the surest way to create the next Riddle, is to continue on the way we have for years. Not to examine policy, not to rethink tradition, to remain firmly ensconced in the way it has always been done, that, my fellow witches and wizards, will surely lead to our children and theirs revisiting these deathly struggles again and again and again.”

She stepped away from the podium and carefully down the steps. She could only imagine the humiliation of falling on her face after that. The crowd was silent, apart from some whispers. It was the reaction she had expected although in her moments of unbridled optimism, she had imagined sweeping up the crowd in a wave of progressive ovation. _Yeah, right._

“Hermione, you could warn a bloke!” Ron hissed at her through his teeth as they walked back to the table. He had her arm in a death grip and deposited her in her seat unceremoniously. Willow visibly shuddered, but Professor Snape chuckled quietly.

“Ronald, you were given the same opportunity I was to…” she started to whisper to him across his girlfriend, but then stopped as Minister Fincher began to speak again.

“Yes, well, Thank you…Miss Granger. Ahem,” he coughed and cleared his throat and then launched into his speech about Order of Merlin, First Class. He gave a long accounting of Harry’s triumphs and begrudgingly mentioned Professor Snape’s role before calling them up. The professor strode to the podium with an impenetrably blank expression, accepted him medal, and then turned to walk back to his seat.

_He doesn’t want to fall into the Ron trap of having to be behind Harry during his speech_ , Hermione thought with amusement.

Harry launched into a perfectly appropriate speech about duty and honour, and one could feel the crowd unclench. Willow’s palpable hatred had ratcheted up considerably; Hermione resisted the urge to send her a two-finger salute and instead slightly turned her body toward Professor Snape, curious about his reaction to Harry’s speech anyway.

To her surprise, he was not actively disdaining Harry. In fact, he was looking at her. Specifically, he was quite obviously ogling her tits. She breathed in, and despite urging herself to keep cool, she could feel the pink rising and a smile taking over her face. He looked away sharply.

Perhaps a trip to the clubs would not be necessary tonight for companionship. Her mind threw an immediate brake. Was she seriously considering shagging Professor Snape? Well…why not? She hadn’t ever considered him as a sexual being, really, but surely he was. Sex was hardly as intimate as stitching up someone’s bleeding throat, keeping him alive. He hadn’t been her teacher for almost two years. He certainly wouldn’t tell anyone.

Her first instinct was to touch his knee and then move her hand slowly upward. She chided herself, not for contemplating making a pass at Professor Snape, an action she had successfully rationalized in her mind, but that she would be so clunky as grope at him under the table. She decided instead to bide her time.

Harry finished his speech, and the group rose in palpable relief to give him enthusiastic applause. _Thank you for telling us exactly what we expected and wanted to hear_ , Hermione thought with irritation.

The Minister closed the formal part of the evening. There would be more drinks and dancing, and the honorees were expected to stay for the first few songs. She could see Professor Snape, palpably anxious to leave, on the periphery, putting on a face that would discourage anyone trying to summon the courage to ask him to dance. She danced with Arthur and Harry, who saved their lecture, thank goodness. A photographer asked for a picture of the trio, and Willow let Ron go for a few moments. Hermione had been keeping one eye on Professor Snape, and he was quickly walking to a side exit during the Golden Trio photo session, probably wary of being called over.

She said goodbye to the group hastily and followed him discretely.

He was standing just outside the door in an alley, lighting a cigarette. He raised one eyebrow when she appeared but didn’t say anything. He took a long drag and offered it to her. She breathed in the smoke, which felt nice in her mouth, but she didn’t inhale. She was afraid her inexperience would lead to a quite unsexy coughing fit.

She handed him back his cigarette and moved so close to him that the front of her body was almost abutting his side.

“Not here,” he said quietly.

“There is a decent pub near my flat in Covington,” she suggested. “It’s Muggle…”

He drew his wand and transfigured his robe into a silk jacket. Under the robe he was wearing a white dress shirt and black trousers that might look slightly exotic but not enough to draw attention. He inhaled a last time on the cigarette and then threw it to the ground and crushed it into the pavement with the toe of his boot. He removed the medal and placed in a pocket of his jacket. She followed in kind, depositing hers in her bag.

She clasped on to him to apparate them. It was the first time she had touched him since last summer in the shack. She had no memories of his physical being from that day, other than holding his hand and that few inches under his ear. She put her arms around his middle, mid-chest level. He was quite thin; she couldn’t feel much beside his ribs. He smelled very good, sandalwood, perhaps, soap, cigarettes faintly. She settled her head just under his arm and concentrated on destination: behind the café and her room. They arrived smoothly, not a given as she hadn’t apparated, let alone side-apparated anyone in months.

The pub she had in mind was one she had visited only once before with an older co-worker. She didn’t feel the meat market quality of the muggle clubs and their young clientele would appeal to him. This pub was frequented by graduate students and younger professors, and Hermione wouldn’t have been surprised to see Jonathan and Rachael there.

They walked up the street silently, awkwardly, and she wasn’t sure how the evening would proceed as she opened the heavy door to the pub and he danced around her, trying to make sure she entered first.

It was crowded, but she and Snape found seats at the bar. He ordered a pint and she a gin and tonic. She had been practicing benign legilimancy on Muggles for months. _You will enjoy these eggs even though they are slightly more done than you ordered them_ or _You don’t want rashers today_ to the early morning crowd because they had a habit of cleaning them out and not leaving any for the eight o’clock rush _._

_I want very little gin in my drink and will leave a generous tip if you comply_ , she thought as she focused on the bartender. She hated feeling out of control on a regular night, and this one could be tricky.

“Cheers,” she offered and clinked Snape’s glass. She took a sip of her drink, which was mostly tonic.

It was quite loud in the pub, taking the pressure off her to initiate conversation. He lit another cigarette, and offered her one, which she declined.

“Happy just to nick from mine,” he grumbled.

“Keep your cigarette, Professor,” she said, but she smiled at him, and he returned it with one corner of his mouth. His eyes betrayed wariness.

He finished his pint quickly and ordered another. She did as well. _This time heavy tonic, scant gin. I will not complain and will leave a good tip_ , she reinforced. She watched as the bartender poured in a drop of gin and filled the rest of the glass with tonic.

“Be careful with your party trick, Miss Granger,” Professor Snape said, rather disinterestedly.

Caught. She looked at him innocently.

“I would guess the Ministry will be keeping an eye on you after tonight, and Muggle mind control is dark for that lot.”

She hadn’t really considered that. “I’m a bit of a light-weight. It’s embarrassing. Darts?” She deflected, and he wordlessly complied, laying down several quid for the drinks, taking his pint, and following her to the back of the pub.

She recognized at least half of the patrons from the café, but most were giving her a look as if she looked familiar, but they couldn’t quite place her.

“You know these people?” he asked her, his breath close in her ear.

“I serve most of them breakfast every morning. But they’re used to me in denims and an apron, my hair in its usual disastrous state, and my face without makeup.”

“I see.”

She handed him his darts, and he threw in rapid succession. He was more than decent, and she suspected he’d had a bit of magical advantage. She took hers and hesitated in, if not the oldest trick in the book, at least one on the first page.

“Like this?” she said and angled her body awkwardly. He played along and put his hands at her hips placing them more expertly and then grasping her wrist lightly and pulling it back by her ear.

She let the dart go and helped it settle near his.

“Yes, Miss Granger, just like that,” he said with an edge of sarcasm that made her warmer than his hands had.

“You could show me again,” she teased him.

“Throw your darts.”

She did and beat him on the last throw.

“Congratulations,” he said and drained his pint. “We could get up a bit of a hustle in an unsuspecting pub.”

“Next time.” She didn’t really want a half glass of tonic, so she left it at the bar in the back and took his arm. He led them out of the pub and back to the chilly night.

“My…flat is where we arrived,” she told him, half expecting him to apparate off anyway.

He said nothing and let her lead the way. She resisted the urge to narrate the walk just to stave off the silence. They finally reached the café.

“Be it ever so humble…” she said as she charmed open the door with her wand.

“This is where you work as well?”

“Every day but Sunday.”

“Will you continue when you start university?”

“I’ll have to cut back, but I plan to do the early shift at least.” She took his hand as they ascended the dark and narrow stairway to her room.

She only realized how small it was when there was another person there. When she was alone, it was the perfect size. She hung her cloak on the coat tree and took his jacket.

“May I use your loo?” he asked.

“Of course.” She cast a quick surface clean spell ahead of him although she was fastidious in her housekeeping. And now, of course, she had to use the loo as well. Could one die of awkwardness? She paced as she waited for him to emerge.

“I have some white wine in the fridge if you want some; it’s probably terrible. I’ll be right out.”

She used the loo and then checked her reflection in the mirror: makeup and hair still fine. She cast a cleansing spell over herself for peace of mind, and she straightened her skirt. She realized she had no idea what to expect from this encounter and wouldn’t be surprised by scenarios ranging from the professor being an awkward virgin to having spent the last twenty years bedding every dark witch in Europe. Although having seen him smoke those cigarettes, held between two long fingers and then gripped in his mouth, it was hard to imagine the virgin scenario, really. She smirked at herself in the mirror.

She walked back into the room and straight to him; he was reading the titles on her bookshelf. She leaned her face in and he joined her, brushing his lips against hers, and then he wound an arm around her and pressed her against him as if in a tango and kissed her with no hesitancy. He opened her teeth with his tongue as if he were staking a claim. She reciprocated with her tongue. His mouth was warm, and she could taste beer and cigarettes.

He started to unzip her in the back, and she felt her arousal grow in the form of quickly spreading warmth originating from her groin. She cast a spell to open her shoes and then vanished her tights. He started to take her dress down. Her breasts bounced free; the cut of the robe hadn’t required a bra. He seemed startled to see them and he paused for a moment and then pulled her dress the rest of the way down before holding her slightly away from him to look at her. She was naked except for skimpy black lace knickers. 

She felt momentarily uncomfortable under his gaze, seemingly his scrutiny—it was the first time since they had left the banquet that she had thoughts of him in the classroom—but he brought her back in close, ignoring her scars, palming her left breast, and lifting her right thigh to his hip. The teacher images disappeared as she responded to his touch.

She started in on the buttons down the front of his shirt, but he removed her hands and quickly unbuttoned with one hand while he continued kissing her. His neck had been visible at the top of his collar, but she could tell he was wearing a glamour over it. She was very curious about its natural state and what the scar from her stitches looked like.

She decided to concede control and just let him act. After his shirt was on the floor, he pressed her against him again before she could look at him in his white, ribbed vest and trousers. He had somehow removed his boots and socks. She could feel his erection against her belly.

She wrapped her leg around his hips and threw her head back in pleasure as her quim abutted him at a new angle. He took advantage of her exposed neck immediately and kissed her down from ear to neck to her collar bone. He had his hand on one of her breasts, and in a moment, he moved his mouth down to it. She gasped as he took her nipple into his mouth and sucked on it hard.

Her single bed was about three paces behind her, and he let go of her leg and walked them closer. He lay her on the bed and then followed, holding himself above her on his elbows, kissing her again on the mouth. She was desperate for more contact at her core, and she dared to put a hand to his placket, which of course was fastened by no fewer than a dozen buttons. Again, he removed her hand, and she whimpered involuntarily.

He ignored his own trousers, but put one hand on the elastic on her knickers that sat just below her hips. He ran one finger just under it, barely brushing the top of her pubic hair. He was so controlled, and she didn’t want to be the desperate one, but she so clearly was. She pressed her center into his hip, and he finally reacted—slightly—by chuckling into her mouth.

“Please,” she whispered back, hoping he wouldn’t make her beg but prepared to do so. She was tempted to put her own hand under her knickers, but suspected he wouldn’t allow that either.

He took pity on her by moving his hand down past her mons, pressing against the fabric of the inside of her knickers with the back of his hand and exploring her flesh beneath.

“Yes!” she breathed, and he moved what felt like his middle finger inside her.

Finally, FINALLY, he reacted with a soft moan. She spread her legs wider for easier access and let the sensations crest over her. Unlike her previous partners, he was not in a hurry. She allowed herself to be the recipient of all of this, not the giver, not the driver, for the first time ever. He removed his hand, but before she could protest, he was taking her knickers down entirely and settling his face between her legs.

He had one hand on her hip bone and one hand on her thigh, and he looked at her and sighed. Then he kissed the top of her mons gently, trailing his kisses down and settling his tongue on her clitoris, making her call out softly, almost sighing a long _ooohhhh_.

He took the hand from her hip and entered her with one finger and then two as his tongue danced languidly. She brought her hands to her breasts, and her nipples hardened into points as he took her closer and closer while she writhed beneath him.

The orgasm erupted within her, much quicker than she expected or really wanted, but it was not to be put off. She boxed his ears lightly with her thighs and groaned in pleasure and relief as he kissed back up her body and finally started unbuttoning those trousers.

“Nox,” he said and the light in the room went out before he removed his trousers and pulled off the vest. But the moon was full, and her bed was pushed against a wall of windows covered in sheer curtains. She could see him, all of him. He was scarred far more severely than she was, from his neck all the way down his torso; on his back as well, to his arse, and the backs of his thighs. He hadn’t used a glamour on his skin that had been covered by clothes. The scarring wasn’t surprising, and she didn’t react as if it was. She turned her attention to his cock, impressively large in its erect state, and she reached down for it and covered it with her hand.

This time, he let her touch him and responded with a gratifying moan. He whispered the incantation of a contraceptive charm that she realized he was casting on them both.

“I take the potion,” she whispered back. Her previous two lovers had used condoms, which she appreciated but had found off-putting and uncomfortable, and for once she felt great relief to be back in the wizarding world.

He ignored her declaration and finished his incantation. Then he splayed her legs and settled his hips just above hers, keeping one hand on her. He kissed her as he circled a finger around her clitoris and pressed his cock against her opening.

“Yes?” he whispered.

“Please,” she responded and placed her hands on his hips. He entered her slowly, and she had to brace herself slightly because of his size. He inched his way in until he filled her all the way. She squeezed herself around him.

“Merlin, Granger!” he hissed. “Have you done this before? You are so…”

“I have, am I not…?” she panicked a bit. What was she doing wrong? Suddenly she was failing a test and this was metamorphosing from one of her favorite recent experiences in a while to what had literally been a nightmare during her relationship with Ron. She had dreamed she was going down on him and the O.W.L. panel was loudly and negatively critiquing her performance.

“Hush, woman,” he breathed. “It was just an expression. You feel…” he stopped talking and just moaned, which was better than words anyway. He began moving, pushing in and pulling back, kissing her and sighing with pleasure against her mouth. She was relieved and relaxed into his motion, drawing her hands from his hips to his arse and then caressing the backs of his thighs.

He kept his hand between them, rubbing circles around and on her clitoris, and she felt herself building again and losing what little control she had maintained. She started vocalizing her building pleasure, mostly involuntarily, calling out repeatedly “Aaah! Oh!” with guttural moaning in between.

She came again, hard on his cock and his hand, and her body went limp as she felt him push deeply inside her and spill into her with a low groan. He collapsed on top of her, still inside her, and she started caressing his back lightly with her fingertips, He let her continue her idle affection for maybe a minute before he disentangled himself, rose and started dressing again, pulling up his trousers, and finding his boots that she didn’t remember him removing. He quickly buttoned the whole works and then reached for his vest and shirt.

“At least let me make you a fry-up, Professor,” she said, not even ready to move from where she was planted into the bed.

“Snape,” he replied.

“What?” she was momentarily confused. “Oh, Professor _Snape._ Sorry.”

“Not _Professor_.”

“I can’t call you just _Snape_ ; do you know how many…”

“I’m not your professor. Call me Snape, please,” he said in a neutral enough tone that it compelled her to comply.

“Fine, Snape. Let me feed you, Snape; you won’t be disappointed.”

“I don’t see a kitchen,” he said.

She had a tiny fridge and a hotplate she never used in one corner of the room.

“No, we’ll go downstairs; everything we need is down there.”

He sighed and took his coat off the rack, putting it on and running a hand through his hair.

“Make it quick,” he stated.

She rose from the bed and grabbed some clean knickers, bra, denims, and her Christmas dragon jumper from her bureau. She walked naked to the loo, slightly abashed.

“Just give me a minute,” she said.

She cleaned herself up quickly and dressed, finally looking in the mirror. Her face was still flushed and her eyes looked content behind smudgy makeup. It was good enough. She put her hair on top of her head with an elastic and exited the small room.

She led them down the stairs to the café and straight to the kitchen. There was a counter with a tall stool, on which she motioned for him to sit.

“Bangers? Rashers? Both? She filled and turned on the kettle, and then started pulling ingredients from the small walk-in.

“Kippers?”

“Of course.” She pulled a package of the fish that she never ate but certainly served a good deal of. Waitressing had cured her of judging people’s food choices. People with odd tastes often were the best tippers. “Mushrooms? Tomato? Black pudding?”

“Mushroom and tomato. Beans?”

“Naturally,” she laughed. She set out the vegetables then opened a can of beans. Toast went in, and then she cracked three eggs on the cooker’s griddle surface.

“Wandless,” he said.

“I’m no Molly, but I’ve learned a bit.”

“Molly Weasley has never cooked wandless in her life.”

“Oh, you are wrong. She cooks right here five mornings a week. I recommended her.”

“The cook with the cut hand,” he said. “I wondered about you foisting that potion on a Muggle.”

“Indeed. She is amazing, by the way. She packs them in.”

“Good for Molly.”

She poured two cups of tea and slid his over with a tea service, and turned around just in time to flip the eggs and vegetables, stir the beans, and butter the toast. There was such a rhythm to it. She placed a selection of jams before him, and then started plating. She wasn’t terribly hungry; she had one of the eggs, half a piece of toast, and a small dollop of beans. She filled his plate generously.

“Thank you.”

“Of course.”

She noticed his tea was practically white, which seemed a good choice for late night. She had been taking hers almost black lately, not because she particularly enjoyed it that way. She added more milk to hers. He chose blackberry jam from the tray and slathered it generously all over the toast instead of using a portion of it for egg dipping. They ate in silence.

When he had just a few bites left on his plate, he took a serviette and patted his mouth.

“Granger. I haven’t been certain whether to thank you or curse you for…your actions that night.”

She put down her tea and looked at him.

“I’m not…I still don’t know. But, I want to acknowledge it, anyway.”

“May I…” she felt as if she might be entering treacherous waters. “May I see your neck?”

He sighed and loosened his collar again. He whispered an incantation and the glamour fell off his flesh. The skin was slightly discoloured, and there was an unmistakable surgical scar that extended about four inches under his ear. It was straight and rather lovely. She ran one finger down it.

She had many feelings about that night she didn’t feel comfortable expressing to him. That it had been only one of many memories during the war that still sometimes kept her up at night, and that it barely cracked the top ten. She had analyzed the whole day and the months leading up to the battle, usually (and so pathetically, she taunted herself) in the context of where she had gone wrong with Ron. How she had mangled the feelings she knew had been quite mutual into the disaster they became. She had turned the crisis of survival into deep meditation on how she had lost her boyfriend. It was disgusting.

As far as Snape was concerned, she was quite happy he had lived, if for no other reason than she couldn’t grieve for one more person. After tonight, she was happy he had survived to shag her like that.

 “I…acknowledge it, too,” she said quietly.

He snorted, buttoned his collar back, and drained his tea. He looked around the kitchen, seemingly for how to dispose of his scraps and clean his plate.

“I’ll take it,” she offered, and brought all the dishes and cups in one trip expertly to the sink.

When she turned back, he had transfigured his jacket back into a robe.

“I would like to…call on you again sometime,” he said.

“That would be fine.”

“I will owl you, would that be acceptable?”

“Yes. I’ll send you my latest work, and you can save an owl,” she laughed as she washed the dishes.

He walked up behind her and kissed her on the neck, just behind her left ear, and then strode out the back door. She heard him apparate away with a pop.

The warmth from before spread throughout her body suddenly, and she dropped the cup she was washing into a sink of soapy water.


	9. Chapter Five: March 1999

 

**Chapter Five**

**March 1999**

 

Ginny was seething about not being allowed to attend the Order of Merlin banquet.

“It’s so bloody unfair. Because we weren’t there? Because we had no role? Bloody, fucking SNAPE gets Order of Merlin, and I have to stay here and babysit?”

“It _is_ horribly unfair, Ginny,” Hermione said and she meant it. It was a major misstep of both the Ministry and the school not to honor students like Ginny and Neville for what they endured.

“Oh, shut up and let me do your hair,” Ginny said.

“Gladly.” Hermione had used a straightening charm, and Ginny was using her wand to roll it into fat curls that they were hoping would lie obediently half-way down her back.

In a display of blatant wishful thinking, Hermione was wearing lilac coloured robes that looked more early spring than late winter. The under dress had a rounded neckline and a long skirt with an outer cloak that went to her knees.  Ginny pulled one side of her hair up behind her ear and secured it with a clip covered with a matching lilac ribbon. Hermione charmed some white shoes with kitten heels lilac to match.  

“Makeup?” Ginny asked.

“A little lip-gloss and mascara, I think.”

“Don’t go crazy, Granger,” Ginny teased her.

Hermione applied the scant makeup and then backed up in front of the mirror for inspection.

“It’ll do,” Ginny said, and then hugged her.

“Thank you, and I’m very sorry. I’ll see you tomorrow night at the Burrow?”

“Of course,” Ginny sighed. “Good luck on your speech.”

“Thank you.” Hermione patted her silver and lilac beaded bag where her notes were.

Hermione left Gryffindor Tower to take a port key to the ministry. Professors McGonagall and Flitwick were there in formal robes.

“No Professor Snape?” she asked.

“Severus has his own plan. I’m sure he’ll be there,” said Professor Flitwick.

McGonagall snorted quietly, and Hermione bit her tongue.

They arrived at the Ministry grand foyer, which was already crowded. Hermione scanned the people for her group, and saw Harry almost immediately with Ron just behind. She sucked in her breath. Ron looked better than she had ever seen him in his formal robes and slicked back hair. He looked like a Muggle film star in formal robes.

She walked quickly toward him and threw her arms around him. His Auror training had become more time consuming lately, and he and Harry had missed the last Saturday dinner. She hadn’t seen him in almost two weeks. Her heart was beating very fast as she embraced him. He let go of her, and kissed her lightly on the mouth.

“You taste like strawberry potion,” he said.

“Sorry,” she said and wiped the gloss from his lips.

“Hermione, you look lovely,” Harry said a bit pointedly, but Ron didn’t take the hint.

“Ginny is furious she couldn’t be here.” Hermione told them.

“She sent me an owl to that effect,” Harry laughed. “It _is_ bollocks.”

“And so predictable,” Hermione said.

“What do you mean?” Ron had a defensive edge. “It’s the Ministry’s fault that Hogwarts wouldn’t let her go?”

“Ron? Who said anything about the Ministry?” He was so hyper-sensitive about any criticism, perceived or otherwise lately. Hermione was tempted to tell him he sounded like Percy, but she didn’t want to provoke him further.

“Then just how is it predictable?”

“Come on, Mate,” Harry said lightly.

“I don’t think any of our agencies are doing a splendid job of taking care of people after the war. You are going to hate my speech, Ronald.”

“Sorry, Hermione,” he said and took her under his arm. “I’m sure your speech is…well-thought out. Thank you for taking care of it.”

“Of course, Ron,” she blushed happily.

“You look very nice,” he said.

“Thanks. But you are stunning.”

He smiled at her. She was scanning the crowd and realizing that she had dressed completely inappropriately. When she had seen the fabric for her robes at Madam Malkin’s she had thought the colour so pretty. Now she realized she looked like either a child or an Easter egg in her lilac and matching bow. The other witches had dressed for the season they were in and looked sophisticated and, well, just right for the occasion. She had thought through her ensemble and had been utterly wrong. She didn’t even match her fiancée, who would look perfect next to any of the other witches. She made a silent resolution to do better in the future.

Molly arrived just as the doors opened to the ballroom. Hermione snagged a hovering glass of champagne for fortitude and followed her group in.

Their table was decorated for the honorees and had calligraphy labeled place-cards, per which she was seated between Ron and Professor Snape. Harry was on the other side of Ron. The boys sat down immediately still engrossed in their quidditch conversation. Hermione sipped her champagne and thought about her speech.

Professor Snape entered the hall just as the doors were closing. He looked effortlessly elegant in formal, black robes, of course. Why was this so easy for everyone else?

He found his place-card, and she prepared herself for the inevitable reaction, but he just nodded to her.

“Miss Granger.”

He was holding a tumbler with a small amount of what appeared to be fire whiskey. She held out her champagne glass and said, “Cheers,” idiotically. He clinked her glass and sat. On further inspection, his robes turned out to be a very dark green and absolutely exquisite. His hair was still growing out but looked tremendously improved from how it had last autumn.

The dinner service began. The salad plates, which contained about four exotic looking leaves, slices of a white vegetable Hermione couldn’t identify, and drizzled with pinkish dressing appeared before them. Their wine glasses were magically filled. Hermione took a small taste of salad; it was not entirely unpleasant. She forked a slice of the vegetable and brought it closer to examine. Ron had turned in his seat so he was facing Harry, and had his back partially to her. She couldn’t tell if he was finding his salad as puzzling as she was.

“Jicama,” Professor Snape said. “It’s more of a textural experience than a tasty one.”

Hermione put the bite into her mouth and agreed with his assessment.

The salads disappeared and were soon replaced with dinner plates with a pork dish, roasted potatoes, and vegetables. This was delicious. Hermione had never appreciated food as much as she had since the quest. 

“What are your plans for next year, Miss Granger?” Professor Snape asked. He didn’t seem as taken with his meal as she was. She had to chew a bite and swallow before she could answer him.

“I was thinking about university, but I have an offer from the Ministry that I don’t think I should turn down. I attended that Ministry event.” In January, the representatives from the Ministry had come to Hogwarts to convince seventh years to explore career paths in government. “Mr. McMahon from the Department of Magical Creatures talked to me about a position that would involve healing and research. I would train and then work out of St. Mungo’s. It’s exactly what I was thinking about without the two years wait of a university degree.” Mr. McMahon had also offered her a generous signing bonus, which she wasn’t sure was in good taste to mention.

“Magical creatures?” he seemed surprised by her choice in fields.

“I would like to focus, if not initially, then eventually on higher order creatures.”

Professor Snape snorted. “You and your house elves.”

“Everyone has her niche,” she said lightly. “And I’m also getting married this summer,” she said, a bit embarrassed although she didn’t know why.

“I had heard that. Best wishes. And congratulations to Mr. Weasley.” He said the name loudly enough that Ron turned toward them.

“Eh?”

“Congratulations on your impending nuptials,” Professor Snape said in a way that suggested he thought Ron was an idiot.

“Uh, yeah. Thanks, sir.” Ron held up his glass and then turned back to Harry. Their conversation had moved from quidditch to hilarious stories involving their fellow trainees in the Auror department.

Hermione chuckled uncomfortably trying to deflect from the awkward position of being ignored by her friends while not knowing how to sustain conversation with her teacher.

She was saved by dinner plates disappearing and being replaced by dessert: a chocolate ice cream merengue concoction that Professor Snape ate in about three bites and then licked his spoon thoroughly. _Professor Snape has a sweet tooth_. It was a rather delightful discovery. She slid hers over to him.

He looked shocked and turned to face her. “That’s unnecessary, Miss Granger.” But she could tell he was pleased with either the gesture or the prospect of eating two desserts or both.

“I’m quite full from dinner. Please enjoy it.”

“Thank you,” he said without a trace of bitterness and dug in, savoring each bite a bit more this time. “I will be working for the Ministry at St. Mungo’s as well, starting in late summer,” he mentioned casually after he had finished.

“Yes?” she tried to temper her excitement, but she was thrilled at this news. “Something with potions?” _What a brilliant comment, Granger. Simply stunning. He must be bowled over with your intelligence._

“Yes, it’s a research post.”

“That is fantastic news for the Ministry, but awful for Hogwarts.”

“I guarantee, Miss Granger, you are the only person who thinks that.”

“I most certainly am not,” she said indignantly, and he laughed just a bit. It was the first time she had ever heard him laugh when he wasn’t mocking someone. At least she didn’t think he was mocking her. “I’ve always liked Potions, but this year it’s been my favorite class. I have learned so much.”

“Miss Granger, surely you have realized that has everything to do with the amount of effort you have given the subject, nothing to do with your fellow students,” he said that word as if he taken a bite of something truly disgusting, “and _despite_ my instructional forays, which have been deplorable this year.”

“Sir…that’s just not true.” She had so much more to say to him, but the Minister was beginning the program. She had an urge to reach for his hand and then…she wasn’t sure, but to do something to convey her gratitude to him. She couldn’t find the nerve, of course. A Gryffindor embarrassment she was.

As the new Minister rattled on, she realized she hadn’t thought about her speech since dinner had started, and she downed her wine to center herself. She retrieved her notes from her bag and read them over until she heard her name and Ron’s. He stood and took her hand as she rose from her seat. He offered his arm, and they walked to the front and up the steps to the little stage.

The Minister put the medals around their necks, and then Ron stepped behind her. She took two breaths, quickly gathered her wits, and approached the podium. She could feel Ron behind her, and she took comfort in that as she began to speak.

“Thank you, Minister, for the award. I speak on behalf of Mr. Weasley when I express our appreciation while we recognize we were but two of hundreds of witches and wizards who fought in the war, many more bravely and with less encouragement than I did.

“The sacrifices made by the living, but especially by those who gave their lives, challenge me every day to try to represent the best that humans are capable of. Let us always remember why we fought; not just to rid the world of an evil wizard, but to state clearly and decisively this is what we stand for. Fairness, equality, justice, and peace for all living beings are not just ideals, but goals we should strive to accomplish.

“Let us honour our martyrs, let us appreciate all who sacrificed by reflecting on what each of us can do to make our society worthy of those heroes.”

Applause rang out, and Ron stepped forward to offer his arm and escort her from the stage.

“Beautiful, Hermione. I knew I was doing right by leaving it to you,” he congratulated himself, and she restrained herself from rolling her eyes as he deposited her back at her seat.

Professor Snape looked at her with a trace of distain.

“Platitudinous clap trap. You outdid yourself,” he said levelly.

“Called for a measured tone, I think,” she was stung, but chided herself for expecting anything else.

“No.”

The Minister launched into muted praise for the professor and rapturous accolades for Harry, which incensed her on Professor Snape’s behalf although he didn’t deserve it from her, she thought resentfully. He rose and walked smoothly to the dais received his award and in one motion returned.

“At least I _gave_ a speech,” she whispered.

“Hardly an achievement,” he whispered back as Harry delivered a speech more perfunctorily pleasant and full of more clichés than hers, and then received at least twice the applause she had. “You could have attacked, Granger. They’ll never love you like that anyway.”

“Who says I want them to?” she spat back.

“Whatever you say.”

Oooooh, that man. She felt anger rising at being misunderstood so fundamentally by him. “I don’t care what they think,” she hissed at him.

“You _live_ for the validation of others,” he came back at her with much less raw emotion than she felt. She found it dismissive and it made her more furious.

“I am gratified when people I respect…issue positive feedback!” Oh, this was going poorly. She sounded so stupid, and she wanted to turn to Ron and ignore the man on her left. Ron was of course still talking quidditch with Harry. AUGH! She breathed. Professor Snape was looking slightly amused, which did not help.

“Listen, do you think I wouldn’t love to lay them all out? Do you think I’m happy about any of it? I just told you I am probably going to be working for them very soon. I think a measured tone is EXACTLY what will allow me to accomplish what I…”

He was no longer smirking at her but had put on a neutral expression.

“You could have gone after them yourself,” she said quietly.  “But you didn’t. For the same reason?”

He didn’t refute her, and as her anger abated, she sighed. He was focusing mostly on his whiskey anyway.

The crowd stood as tables were being vanished and orchestra music began to waft through the air. Ron finally turned to her.

“We should dance?” he asked in a sweet tone and took her hand. When they had almost reached the dance floor, she looked back to see Professor Snape with a refreshed glass looking fierce enough that someone would have to be awfully brave to approach him.

She danced a bit with Ron before switching off to Arthur and Harry. A photographer was circulating took lots of pictures of them. Then the music changed to more modern selections, and Ron and Harry let out a _woop!_ Ron took her in his arms as a reaction to the strong beat of the music. Soon they were both jumping at the wild song.

“Your speech was great, “’Mione!” he yelled at her.

“Thank you! You look gorgeous!”

“You do, too! Let’s get pissed!”

He took her in his arms again and said in her ear, loud enough for her to hear over the music, but not shouting as before. “Let’s get rightfully pissed, and then let’s go home and shag proper!”

“That sounds like a delightful plan. Should I go fetch some drinks?”

“Would you, ‘Mione?”

He didn’t wait for an answer before he grabbed Harry and commenced jumping up and down to the music.

She wore a massive grin as she walked toward the bar and hardly noticed Professor Snape in her path until she almost bumped into him.

 “Sorry, Professor,” she said, practically giddy.

“Miss Granger,” he said, just loudly enough to be heard over the music. “May I speak with you for a moment?”

“Of course,” she said and turned to give him her attention.

He placed his hand very lightly on her back so that is was just skimming her robe and led her to a corner of the room where the music wasn’t blaring. He dropped his hand so he was touching her wrist with the tips of his fingers before he spoke with his face close to hers so she could hear him.

“Miss Granger,” he said seriously. “I’m not sure…I haven’t been sure whether to thank you or curse you…”

She inwardly gasped that he was broaching this subject, but she kept her face neutral. She waited for him to finish the sentence, but he just looked at her.

“You don’t need to do either.” She struggled with the words to express what she felt. _I’m thrilled you’re alive. I think about that half hour all the time. It’s my proudest moment of the war, and the one I’m the least conflicted and ambivalent about._

She took his hand that had been by her wrist and squeezed it gently. She remembered instantly the last time she had held his hand in the shack when she was willing him not to die. He looked so different now, years younger, and if not exactly happy, at least not miserable. She tried to convey her feelings with a look.

“Good night, Miss Granger,” he said, turned, and letting go of her hand, whisked out the door.

“Good night, Professor Snape,” she called to his back. When he had disappeared, she resumed her mission to procure some drinks and spend the rest of her night with her fiancé.


	10. Chapter Six: Summer 1999

**Chapter Six**

**Summer 1999**

Snape visited Hermione every other Saturday and the occasional Tuesday throughout the spring. The first few Saturday meetings, they would go to a pub and run their darts hustle to pay for drinks, but soon enough they wordlessly, tacitly agreed on the purpose of their meetings. He would owl in advance, apparate to the alley behind the café, and head straight for her door. They sometimes didn’t make it to the bed.

On Saturday nights, he would usually arrive just before midnight and would leave shortly after a two A.M. breakfast. On Tuesdays, he would arrive after dinner and stay until about ten o’clock.

He controlled the agenda for the most part, at least during the encounters that ended most satisfactorily for both. They hardly talked except the occasional feedback on a potion she had sent him. He met her sexual needs more than adequately, and it seemed to her as if that was mutual. While he didn’t extoll her virtues, neither did he ever complain. The relationship, if one could even call it that, hardly effected or influenced the rest of Hermione’s life, which was devoted to waiting tables and doing whatever the Fosters needed at the café, saving money, and studying.

She did discontinue the practice of picking up Muggle boys, as this was no longer necessary to satisfy her libido. She still enjoyed drinking and people watching in the clubs, but on nights she wasn’t expecting a visit, she remained celibate.

When she tried to take control of her evenings with Snape, it rarely went well. One time after seeing a Muggle music video at the launderette, she met him at her door in her old Hogwarts uniform, the skirt charmed to fall six inches above her knees, the blouse significantly tighter than she ever wore it, and mostly unbuttoned, hair in bunches by her ears. He took one look at her.

“No,” he said and immediately apparated away with a decisive pop. He returned the following Tuesday, and they never mentioned the incident.

One Saturday night she was suffering miserably from cramps, and had been too embarrassed to owl ahead and tell him not to come that night. She planned to fake it as best she could, but she felt too awful by the time he arrived. She had left her front door open and had curled up in her armchair with a pillow charmed to stay comfortably warm at her abdomen.

“I’ll be happy to blow you,” she said pathetically, sounding ridiculous uttering the vulgarity. Again, he apparated away immediately. This time, though, he returned about twenty minutes later with a phial of potion that he handed her silently. She took it, and within five minutes, she was feeling immensely better.

He had poured himself a whiskey from a bottle she had bought to have when he visited. They didn’t often stay in the room long enough after sex for him to drink it. He sat at her little kitchen table with his drink.

“With all that mastery of kitchen brewing, why didn’t you just make this yourself?” He was incredulous.

“I didn’t know it existed.”

“How is that possible? I provide Poppy with cauldrons of it every year.”

“I didn’t need it when I was in school. I never had a problem…with…” even though they had been naked in each other’s presence a dozen times by this point, she still felt awkward discussing this. “My periods weren’t…problematic until the recently.  They’ve been awful since the curses at the Malfoys. I mean, I…they had stopped for a while during that time, but since they came back last autumn, they have been really awful.”

She had hardly been able to work on the first day of her cycle since. She kept nagging herself to see a healer or a Muggle doctor or someone who could help.

“Why didn’t you ask someone? Surely Molly…”

“I don’t know. It’s embarrassing, and Muggle remedies are usually...”

“I’ll owl you instructions immediately,” he started toward the door.

“You don’t have to leave; I meant what I said…”

“That won’t be necessary, Granger.” He drained his drink in one go and popped away again. Two hours later, an owl was scratching at her window clutching a small basket in its beak. Inside was twelve phials of potion and a card with brewing instructions.

Hermione increased the time she spent studying as traffic at the café slowed because the university portions of the town emptied during the summer. She and Snape didn’t talk about her life much, and his not at all, but he did stay a bit longer to answer questions that arose in her studies.

Two significant events marked July: Snape left for a month in Italy, and Harry and Ginny married at the Burrow.

The first one gave her plenty of time to study and a roaring libido she no longer wanted to satisfy with Muggle boys. Two weeks after his departure, Snape sent her a postcard of _David,_ upon which he had drawn a kilt. He had charmed the statue to say filthy bon mots in a broad Scottish brogue. She put tape over David’s mouth and affixed the card to her small fridge.

She was an attendant at the Weasley-Potter wedding and had to spend more than she could afford on a set of sky blue robes. Fleur, who was eight months pregnant, met her at Madam Malkin’s to share in the indignity of bridesmaids’ attire.

The wedding was on a beautiful night with perfect weather. The whole Burrow was transformed into a fairy village. Ginny was gorgeous, and Harry looked perfectly happy. Ron had recently proposed to Willow, and not even that could dampen the joy. He walked Hermione down the aisle as chief attendants and danced with her at the reception. She managed to be a little happy for him.

“She had better treat you right, always,” she told him as they swayed to the music in her ridiculous bridesmaid getup of light blue robe and a wreath of summer flowers in her hair, which lay in ringlets to her shoulders per the theme of the day.

“She does, Hermione.”

It was difficult for her to imagine Willow wanting the same kind of family Ron did, but of course Hermione didn’t know her well.

“I want you to stand up with me. You and Harry. In October.”

Willow was planning a fancy autumn wedding in London.

“I doubt your fiancée would appreciate that, Ron. You don’t have to…”

“It was non-negotiable, Hermione. You’re my best friend, you and Harry.”

“Of course I will. Can I dress in menswear?”

“Probably not,” he laughed.

After the formal part of the evening ended, the reception turned into more of a bash. Hermione drank too much, party-snogged George, but declined the offer of his bed.

“Come on, Granger. Ron’s a git. Let me show you some real Weasley loooovin’.”

“Sorry, George.”

 She probably would have apparated drunk to the point just outside Hogwarts and staggered to the dungeons if Snape had been in the country. Instead she took a safer, sadder portkey home.

Her NEWTs were the last week of July, over a period of two days. They were administered in office space at the university by a collection of witches and wizards, most of whom seemed put upon to have to be there. _For as much as I’m paying for this_ , she thought, and refused to be intimidated.

She felt as prepared as she could possibly be, and the testing days flew by. She received the results almost immediately: Os all around, and she was officially accepted to the university. Even counting her monetary award from her Order of Merlin, she still had five weeks to work in able to afford a year’s worth of fees, books, and supplies, but if she budgeted everything strictly, she would just manage.

Snape owled her of his return on the first week of August, and she plotted to hit as many pubs as possible, not only to augment her earnings with dart hustle, but also to get a bit pissed with him to celebrate the end of her NEWT endeavor.

He arrived Saturday night at eleven in, per her instructions, Muggle clothes: dark denims buttoned tight against his boots and a black short-sleeved cotton shirt. He was actually tan, and she was jealous of his summer holiday. The only time she had been outside in three weeks was walking to and from the university library to study.

She wore her own costume, a faded denim jacket over a pink sundress and ballet flats for her role as a Muggle ingénue date and darts novice. She did a little twirl for him outside the café and her skirt swirled around her. He rolled his eyes and headed up the street towards their marks.

He was _Mike_ and she _Louise_ for the night although she never actually persuaded him to call her that, but in her head, she was Louise, and perhaps _Lou_ in more intimate moments.

Despite his unwillingness to really play the game the way she wanted, they were smashingly successful, hitting four pubs and ending the evening reasonably drunk gratis with thirty quid in her little pink and silver beaded bag. He refused to share in the take, but he had clearly enjoyed himself and was even smiling as they walked back to her flat holding hands. She tried to swing their hands, which he immediately refused, but he didn’t stop her when she pulled him into an alley and pressed him against the bricks on the backside of a shop.

“Thank you, Snape. That was more fun than I’ve had in months.”

“That’s quite unfortunate, Granger,” he said, but he pulled her closer and kissed her on the mouth. He had one hand on her back, keeping her close to him. and one hand on her arse, pulling up the skirt of her dress, and groping under it for her cotton knickers.

She groaned appreciatively and sucked his tongue into her mouth, which made him grind his groin into her hipbone with a purpose. She could feel his cock hard against her, and she reached for her wand in her bag and spelled open the buttons of his placket as she sunk to her knees on the pavement.

She took his cock into her mouth, the first time he had ever given her the chance, and she let him fill her all the way to the back of her throat as she freed his bollocks and began to roll them in her hand.

He moaned loudly and allowed her to pleasure him, sucking and licking and stroking, for at least thirty seconds before he broke away from her and glared down.

“Stop,” he said forcefully, pushing his cock back in his trousers and buttoning rapidly.

“Come on, no one will see us, and even if they did, I doubt they would be so scandalized. People…”

“No!” he practically shouted.

“Well, _that_ they would notice,” she grumbled and rose from the ground, brushing pebbles from her knees. “I just wanted to…”

“I am not at your mercy, Granger,” he hissed at her and apparated away with a crack.

“Goodnight, Snape,” she muttered and walked home by herself.


	11. Chapter Six: Summer 1999

**Chapter Six**

**Summer 1999**

 

1 July, 1999

 

Dear Miss Granger,

 

Thank you for the invitation to attend your wedding at the end of the month. I am sorry to have to decline, but I will be out of the country. Please reiterate my congratulations to Mr. Weasley, and I send you sincere best wishes.

Miss Granger, I regret that we didn’t have a chance to speak at the final banquet as I was unable to express my regards for your outstanding performance this year, both in my class and on your exams.

While I look forward to working with you at the Ministry, I feel as if I would be remiss if I didn’t implore you to be certain that your current path is exactly what you wish. You have the opportunity to explore any field in any capacity. Please do not feel obligated to satisfy anyone but yourself with the choices you make for your life.

Sincerely,

Professor Severus T. Snape

 

She received the letter via owl the same day she also received notice that Professor Snape had deposited ten galleons in her new joint account with Ron at Gringotts.

She read the letter again and again. She couldn’t determine if he was referring to her career or her impending marriage or both.

She had received straight Os on her NEWTs and had been the only Potions student to earn one. She was starting her new job with the Ministry in mid-August after she returned from her honeymoon. She put Professor Snape’s letter aside to ponder again later, and focused on wedding plans.

She and Ron were having a joint ceremony with Harry and Ginny. This worked very well for Hermione, as she had no one to invite on her own. She thought about her parents, as she did frequently, and dearly hoped that they were happily oblivious. She didn’t even have someone who was an obvious choice to be her witness. She and Ginny chose Fleur and Luna to stand with them opposite Bill and Charlie. George would escort Hermione down the aisle behind Arthur and Ginny.

Fleur, who would be eight months pregnant at the time of the ceremony would not be served by the same style of dress as Luna, so Hermione convinced Ginny to let the women pick their own robes in the colour palette they called _summer appropriate blue_.

For her own gown, Hermione gave herself to the mercy of Madam Malkin, doubting her own sense of style and ability to choose something appropriate and flattering. She ended up with a simple ivory silk robe that was elegant in a rather retro way. It was draped to lay against her curves—smaller breasts; wider hips—in a rather flattering way. It was sleeveless with a high neckline, plunging back, and a long skirt, straight to her feet and then pooling out. It was trimmed with a narrow band of ivory lace ribbon. She would wear her hair in a twist with three ivory rosebuds pinned to the side.

Ginny also chose ivory, but her dress had a halter neckline and a flowing skirt with a lace overlay. She would wear her long, red hair down with a wreath of ivory roses.

More importantly, the two couples had to agree in the type of ceremony, in fact the kind of marriage they would enter. Increasingly, younger people were rejecting the magical marriage binding. Harry and Ron had responded to a harrowing number of domestic violence cases during their Auror training. Many of these had been neglected for a year while the Aurors attended to war duties, and now they had dozens of back cases to investigate. This experience had soured both against traditionally held views of marriage.

Hermione was thrilled as she had no experience with magical marriage anyway, and the whole concept had always been rather creepy to her. Ginny was slightly disappointed but understood the argument against it. Molly was insulted and hurt, but even that was not enough to make Harry, Ron, and Hermione change their minds on this point. The Ministry was so eager for wizarding marriages to take place that they were accommodating new ideas on this front.

Harry and Ron were sworn in as full-fledged Aurors two weeks before the wedding. Hermione attended the ceremony proudly and became a bit choked up when Kingsley Shacklebolt pinned their badges to their robes.

They had desks in the Auror department next to each other and would continue to work together. Harry and Ginny would live at Grimmauld Place, and Ron and Hermione found a small but rather lovely townhouse in a wizarding neighborhood near the Ministry. They pooled their Merlin Second Class monetary awards and with her Ministry signing bonus, and they didn’t have to borrow much from Gringotts. They could easily pay their mortgage with their wages.

The house had three bedrooms, and they agreed to wait a few years to establish themselves in their careers before they started to fill them. It all seemed so grown up and sensible to Hermione, and she was eager to move in. She would have done so already, but it was a small concession to Molly to wait until after the wedding.

She was staying at the Burrow in the interim, and during time not spent planning the wedding, Hermione was reading everything she could find about the anatomy and physiology of magical creatures. She had lending privileges at the Ministry library but was having difficulty finding hard science. She read zoology and anatomy texts from the public library to supplement and began keeping a journal of questions. She could find almost no data about anything pertaining to elves. It seemed as if no one had given the matter serious study ever. Nothing invigorated her like a challenge, though, and she was eagerly awaiting starting work.

She woke up on her wedding day missing her parents despite feeling that her mother in particular would be appalled by her marrying so young. It was much more a part of this culture, though, and she reassured herself to mollify that nagging voice in her head questioning if she could have a family _and_ a stimulating career. She reminder herself that she and Ron had a lovely home to move into, and that they had agreed on a timeline concerning children.

_But you’re in love?_ She heard her mother say clearly.

_I’m truly in love, Mum._

_And he’s the only one?_

_He’s the only one I’ve ever loved. He’s the only one I could see myself with. He’s the only one that makes sense to me._

_And he feels the same?_

Hermione promptly evicted her mother from her head. Of course he loved her. He was marrying her.

Fleur was kind enough to help Hermione with hair and makeup. If Hermione doubted the friendship of her soon to be sister-in-law, the fact that she was willing to wear a maternity bridesmaid outfit for an outdoor wedding in late July was evidence enough of her devotion. Fleur looked radiantly beautiful in her blue robe, and helped Hermione look as pretty as she ever had.

Harry and Ron were staying away until the ceremony, and Hermione clung to George in the potting shed with Arthur and Ginny, waiting for the music to begin.

“Run off with me, Granger,” George told her with a twinkle in his eye. “Ron’s a git. I’ll treat you right.”

“It’s too late, George. I’m his.”

Ron locked eyes with her as she walked down the aisle, and she felt both loved and relieved.

“You are beautiful, Hermione,” he whispered as she took her place by his side.

When she thought back on that day, she knew Harry and Ginny were right beside them, but she had no memories of them from the ceremony. It was as if she and Ron were the only people in the garden. She didn’t think she had ever been happier than when they looked in each other’s eyes and recited their vows. They kissed gently at the end, and it was as perfect an experience as she had ever had.

There was dinner and dancing and drinks and toasts in the late afternoon. She held Ron close and they faked a waltz as best they could.

“You seem…so much better,” she sighed into his ear.

“Than what?”

“Than last summer, than last year.”

“Of course, Hermione,” he seemed somewhat put out. “My brother had just died, my mother couldn’t get out of bed, my whole family was mourning.”

“I know, Ron. I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just worried about you.”

“Well, you don’t need to be. I wasn’t any different than anyone else.”

“I’m sorry, Ron. I shouldn’t have brought it up. Forgive me?” She hoped she could deflect this away and not spoil their heretofore perfect day.”

“Yeah, of course.” They finished their dance and he turned to dance with Molly while George swept Hermione up.

 They took a portkey to Budapest just as the sun was setting at the Burrow.

They were taking a joint quidditch themed honeymoon to Eastern Europe with Harry and Ginny. Hermione brought an extensive collection of books to read during the quidditch matches and looked forward to touring these countries that she had never visited before.

They checked into a beautiful hotel in wizarding Budapest, and she walked with Ron to their room, which had a terrace view of the city, lit up for a summer night.

She unzipped the side of her dress and let it fall to the floor. He sighed appreciatively and started unbuttoning his formal robes. She was wearing a matching bra and knickers set of ivory lace with no stockings because of the summer weather. She took over undressing him as he kissed her neck and shoulders and caressed her back and sides. When she had him down to his pants—rather smart black boxer briefs she hadn’t seen before, she pushed him lightly onto the bed and grinned at him. He smiled back and put his hands behind his head to enjoy the show.

She took her hair down first and swung it around to one side. She unhooked her bra and removed it slowly and then tossed it to him; he caught it with one hand.

“Cheeky witch,” he grinned.

She sauntered toward the bed, and as soon as she was close enough, he caught her by the hips and swung her down to him, and she snogged him finally, the way she had wanted to all night. She could feel him harden beneath her, and she felt a little involuntary wave of relief, even though it hadn’t been a problem for a while.

She reached in and took his cock in her hand and squeezed.

“Mine,” she whispered with a smile against his mouth and lowered herself down, kissing down his chest and gingery trail to remove his pants and take him in her mouth. She ran her tongue all over him, just the way he liked and caressed his bollocks in her hand, rolling them gently.

He groaned loudly, and let her pleasure him for a minute or so before he pulled her up, flipping her over in the process so he was on top of her. He pulled her knickers down decisively, and his determination gave her a little thrill through her core. She spread her legs and he drove in one motion, more aggressively than he ever had. He palmed one of her breasts and brought his mouth to it and sucked, and she almost came just then.

They moved together, both moaning and calling out. They always cast a muffliato at Grimmauld or at the Burrow, but having sex in an occupied house always made them feel somewhat inhibited in a way they didn’t then. It was glorious. She brought his hand to her mouth and licked his fingers suggestively. He took the hint and began rubbing her clitoris in and around.

“Fuck me hard,” she gasped, and he did. She came after four thrusts, calling out her appreciation.

He paused for her to come down from her orgasm and then kissed her and began moving in her again. She ran her hands all over him and whispered love declarations. After a few minutes, he squeezed his eyes shut as if he were really trying to concentrate.

“Sorry,” he gasped. “I’m…it’s been a really long day.”

“Shh, it’s okay,” she whispered and cast a silent lubrication spell, hoping it would help him along. It seemed to make an immediate difference, and she squeezed against his cock as hard as she could.

He came and shuddered against her, and she let out a breath of relief. He kissed her again, and his own relief was palpable as well. As unsentimental as Ron tended to be, not being able to complete the act of marital consummation—if that was even a question for a courtship that hadn’t been chaste—was an obviously ominous sign even to him.

Bludger dodged, she settled in with her arm around his middle and her head on his chest. He was already dozing off.

“Good night, Ronald. My husband,” she giggled in quiet delight.

“Night ‘Mione,” he sighed and fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The current exchange rate for galleons to pounds is 1=4.95 and to dollars at 1=7.54, so Snape’s wedding gift would be about 50 pounds or 75 dollars today. That would have the buying power of about 73 pounds or 110 dollars in 1999.


	12. Chapter Seven: October 1999

**Chapter Seven**

**October 1999**

 

She took her afternoon tea at the student center every day.  She arrived as close to three as she could manage. Lunch was well over and serious tea was a few hours away. There were few other people there, and it gave her the only chance she had to interact with elves.

There was certainly nothing in the official curriculum that assisted her research. The magical creatures department was filled with wizards rigorous in their pursuit to classify as many species as possible. Long term, in-depth study was slated for the future, and for scholars of the future.

Potions and arithmancy were fascinating but immediately unhelpful. She _had_ determined that she was in the right place. The witches and wizards here were serious about research, not beholden to the Ministry, and were allowed to plot their own courses. She would finish her two-year program here, focused as much as possible on as much hard science as possible, supplement with anatomy and psychology courses at the Muggle university, and become a scholar here in her own right soon.

She began keeping a journal with notes, questions, illustrations, and ideas and thought of it as a rough draft for her first published work. She made tentative relationships with several elves who worked for the university. They were wary of her; their community seemed to be quite insular, and her Hogwarts reputation proceeded her, but she assured them emphatically that she had put up her knitting needles and just appreciated their service. She was a waitress after all.

She put in an early shift every day, grabbed breakfast of tea and toast on the way to class, pulled an hour lunch shift and a quick sandwich, returned to class and then tea at the student center, studied in the library until eight or so, and then returned home to the plate of food Molly left her in the fridge. She hadn’t been this happy since fourth year before that all went to hell.

Several times, she sat down to write Snape, but she was never able to find words she felt were appropriate. She refused to apologize for his own hang-ups, for one. But she didn’t want to alienate him further. She missed his company, and she had about a hundred questions she wanted to ask him recorded in her journal. Finally, in mid-September, he sent an owl.

_Saturday, late evening, if that is amenable to you._

_That would be fine,_ she owled back and made sure his favorites were on hand in the walk-in downstairs.

He arrived at her door promptly at eleven, wearing a less formal robe than she had ever seen him in over black wool trousers and a white oxford button-down.

“Hello, Snape,” she said.

He didn’t return the greeting but swept her against the wall by the door and kissed her before practically carrying her to the single bed.

He undressed her quickly with little notice to the effort she had made into looking sexy: a jumper that hung over one shoulder, matching pink bra and knickers, a tight denim skirt and high-heeled pumps. She should have just put on the oversized t-shirt and boxers she wore to sleep in, she thought as he unceremoniously unzipped the skirt and tossed it on the floor.

He didn’t stop her from pulling his robe off or unbuttoning his shirt although he did remove her hands when she laid them on the front of his trousers. He banished the light and removed them himself.

He remained in control, whispering the contraceptive incantation.

“Potion,” she whispered, as she always did. He ignored her and put one of her legs on his shoulder before he leaned in and thrust into her. Her voice betrayed her by letting out a long, shuddering groan. He fucked her silently, keeping her left leg at his shoulder and putting his hand down intermittently, but not long enough or consistently enough.

“Don’t stop,” she pleaded quietly when he finally hit just the right rhythm, and he promptly removed his hand. She put her own down on herself, and he brushed it away.

“Snape!” she said in an exasperated tone.

“Shhhhh,” he responded and fucked her harder to glorious effect, but not quite enough. He rubbed her again for just a moment and then stopped again. There was a hint of glee in his eyes, and she shut hers in protest.

He came with a very quiet moan, and as soon as his contractions abated, he pulled out and moved down to lay his tongue flat on her clitoris, which made her practically explode in orgasm.

“Fuuuuuuucccckkkkkkk!” she called out. She was incapable of speaking further or even opening her eyes for minutes. When she finally did, fanning her leg over his head and retreating to the edge of the bed by the wall, he was smirking at her. “What the hell was that, Snape?” she laughed.

“You seemed to enjoy it,” he said as he was pulling on clothes.

No way was he leaving before she could talk to him.

“I did, and I’m making you breakfast, so no disappearing.”

“Fine. I want a smoke first.”

“You can sit in the door to the alleyway while I cook.”

She threw on her underwear and jumper and grabbed some denims from the drawer. She had missed this next bit as much as the sex. Journal in hand, she led him downstairs and propped a high stool in the door at the back of the kitchen. He lit a cigarette, and she stole a drag, more to demand he share than out of desire for the smoke. She washed her hands and then started to pull out items she would need.

“Did you attend university, Snape?” she had her journal out to see her notes on the page with _P.S._ at the top.

“No.”

“Did you ever want to?”

“No.”

“Did you have any potions training beyond NEWT level before you started teaching?”

“Obviously.”

This was absolutely illuminating. She remonstrated herself for expecting anything else. The chilly September night was making the open door rather uncomfortable. She brought him a cup of tea and was happy to see he was close to the end of the smoke. He looked cold, too.

“Where did you study? With whom?”

“Why?”

“Because I’m interested, Snape. Because I just started here, and have learned quickly that it’s not really the…it’s not as simple as I hoped it would be. I’m having to plot my own course, pretty much literally. And I thought—I know, how ridiculous—I thought maybe I could talk to you about how you managed.”

“What is your course? Not potions, I gather.”

“No. Magical creatures. Higher order,” she sighed, bracing herself.

“You and the house elves, Granger.” He had moved the stool in and shut the door, so at least it wasn’t freezing any more.

“No one else is even trying, so I feel compelled,” she silently chided herself for the apologetic tone. “But it’s daunting.”

“I had a rather traditional apprenticeship with a…master in Hungary. In the context of the times and…my choices, it was the only option available.”

“You were on his payroll—Riddle’s?”

“Yes,” he sounded weary.

“Did you have to supplement it with…I don’t know…”

“Lighter pursuits?”

“Right. As a teacher.”

“I did my own study, not for teaching per se, but just to have a more comprehensive…understanding.”

“The professors in the magical creatures department are perfectly adequate if I were interested in the mating habits of lobalugs, and I don’t expect anyone to tailor a course to me—I’m not that naïve,” she scraped her last soldier across her plate to pick up the remainder of the egg yolk. He was fastidiously covering his in blackberry jam and was on his third cup of tea. “But shouldn’t scholars be open to what is a blatantly neglected area of their field? When I try to broach the subject, they are either patronizing or defensive. They seem incapable or unwilling to recommend literature from anywhere. Surely someone, somewhere, has done some research…”

“Incapable and therefore defensive, I would guess, Granger. I know of no research in my field pertaining to higher orders, either. For whatever reason, it is not a well-studied area…”

“If you had to speculate,” she said and he snorted before she could finish. “No, really, if you had to, why do you think it’s been neglected?”

“I have no idea. Lack of interest, fear of upsetting what has become accepted natural order, lack of…there hasn’t been a call within the relevant population…if anything I would guess they—the elves themselves—would be horrified…”

“I know, I know. And I’m partially to blame,” she was wiping down counters and starting preliminary clean-up but didn’t want to turn her back to him and shut down the discussion. She didn’t want him to disappear yet.

“You give yourself too much credit…and blame in that regard,” he said and drained the last of his tea. “Good night, Granger, thanks for the meal.” he said and left with a soft crack and no mention of future plans.

He owled her Thursday for the next Saturday night, which surprised her as he had only had every other Saturday night off last term. That was why he had showed up on the occasional Tuesday evening, as he had those off in alternating weeks as well. It was her first question when he arrived.

“How did you swing having every Saturday? Who’s watching the Slytherins?”

He looked at her levelly. “I’m not at Hogwarts anymore.”

“WHAT?” It was as if the world she knew and relied on was crumbling around her. “Since when?”

“I took a job at the Ministry. I started in August.”

Hermione hadn’t realized how out of touch she had been with the Hogwarts crowd, and with Harry, Ron, and Ginny. The boys had been sworn in as Aurors in the summer, and Ginny had started an early childhood course, but she hadn’t had a real conversation with any of them for weeks. She wondered if Molly knew.

“What are you…what is your job?”

“Potions. Research. St. Mungo’s.” He shut her up by seizing her mouth with his and backing her up against the wall. She was wearing a short, full skirt that she had planned to twirl a bit, but he didn’t give her the chance. He lifted one of her legs around him and vanished her knickers without a look.

With one hand, he inserted two fingers into her straight away and swirled around her clitoris with his thumb, spreading her wetness, and with the other he was unbuttoning his trousers and releasing his cock, already hard, she realized with a little thrill. He whispered the contraceptive and the slid into her quite easily.

“Uhhhh, potion,” she moaned.

“Granger,” he said and began moving in her, bracing one hand against the wall while still attending to her with the other. He let her kiss and suck at his neck and ear. Her skirt was in the way, so she tucked it into the waistband with no shame, though she giggled quietly in his ear. He smiled, too, a very rare genuine one, that made her feel warm. She slammed against his cock in response. _This is just sex_ , she reprimanded herself.

He stayed again, and she asked him a new series of questions. She had found evidence that a book had been written in the seventeenth century about the society of the elves but had no leads on where to find it. He wasn’t overly helpful but pointed her to some sources of rare book dealers while he ate his kippers, eggs, toast, and jam. After breakfast, he kissed her on the mouth and brought her back against a wall in the kitchen, mimicking their earlier liaison.

“Thank you, Granger,” he whispered in her ear before disappearing, leaving her rather hot and bothered, which she suspected was his intent.

He continued to visit her every Saturday, always writing in advance, save one in early October when she spent a week and a half without hearing from him. When he resumed the routine the next week, he didn’t explain the absence, and she didn’t ask. He owled her the Thursday before Ron and Willow’s wedding, and she replied that he was welcome, but she wouldn’t be home until midnight. He didn’t respond, so she had no idea if she would see him or not.

Her robe for the wedding, which Madam Malkin had given her with an air of _don’t blame me, I just followed the plans_ , was dark purple, and appeared to have been designed to show off Hermione’s flaws. It had a high neck-line that squashed her breasts unattractively, and then flared out at the hips where Hermione didn’t need any help. The robe had balloon three-quarter sleeves, and a large bow that sat right above her derriere. She truly looked like an aubergine in the dress. She wore her hair full and curly to create the illusion of volume at the top to balance the look, and found a pretty necklace that would hopefully draw the eye away from her middle.

The robe was three times as expensive as the one for Ginny’s wedding had been. It consumed all of Hermione’s food budget through Christmas, and if she hadn’t been employed at a café, she wasn’t sure what she would have done. That she had to pay so dearly for a dress robe that made her look hideous was just one more indignity of her life.

She attended the rehearsal Friday night and quick adjustments had to be made to prevent her from escorting Marietta Edgecombe down the aisle. Willow insisted that Harry and Ginny be matched, so Hermione walked with Cho Chang, who hated her almost as much as Marietta. Willow’s whole contingent treated her like a pariah, subtly enough that Ron would probably never notice, and Hermione didn’t draw attention to it either. That Ron insisted on her standing up with him was enough.

After dinner at the Burrow, she accompanied Ron, Harry, and the brothers on his stag night. Ginny was relegated to the hen party and looked thoroughly jealous as they went their separate ways. The boys and Hermione made their way through the pubs of wizarding London and three A.M. breakfast at the café.

“Did you know that Professor Snape is no longer at Hogwarts, that he took a job at the Ministry?” she asked the crowd.

“That’s old news, Granger,” George was cozying up to her, but she shrugged him off good-naturedly.  “Don’t you read the _Prophet_ anymore?”

“Who has the time?” She removed his hand from its resting place just above her arse.

“Who’s the bloke, Hermione?” he said loudly to the group assembled in the kitchen. “You won’t have me, so who is he?”

“No one, George,” she said as neutrally as possible.

“Do we believe that, boys?” he called to the group. He was rather in his cups at this point.

“Leave her be, George,” Ron said, and Hermione had to tamp down the feelings once again that were just there under the surface. She loved him still, she cursed herself. He was helping her wash up while the rest of the gang were lighting cigars in the ally.

“Go to your party,” she told him.

“Come on, Mione’, you too.” He had a bottle of Ogden’s in his hand that he slung over her shoulder. She couldn’t resist. She took the bottle from him, filled their teacups in the cold alley, and accepted her lit cigar. Ron replaced his arm around her shoulder, and she settled in against him. It was agonizing and yet so pleasurable, and if he had given the slightest hint that he was agreeable, she would have taken him to her bed hours before his wedding.

“Thank you, Hermione,” he whispered against the shouts of the others. They had cast some silencing charms in deference to the Muggle neighbors. “Thanks for being with me at the wedding. Willow…”

He had noticed the treatment. Joy bubbled up again.

“I wouldn’t miss it, Ronald.” _I love you_.

“Love you, ‘Mione,” he said and squeezed her close.

Harry was watching across the group and swooped in just then, taking her and dancing around while the Weasley brothers sang a filthy wizarding folk song. They left at five A.M., and Hermione had just enough time to cast a cleansing charm on the kitchen before Bob and Marilyn arrived for the Saturday early morning breakfast service.

She finally made it upstairs for a quick kip before it was time to don the abominable purple robe for the wedding.

Ron was nervous but seemed genuinely happy and the only Weasley brother not obviously hung over. Willow looked perfectly beautiful and appropriate, and the bridesmaids were all wearing flattering robes. Hermione, feeling just like a round purple vegetable, topped the day by starting her period two days early, ten minutes before the ceremony. She almost had to laugh.

The wedding was in a ballroom charmed to look like the autumn outdoors. It was primarily lit with candles in gourds although not jack-o’-lanterns, which would have given the venue more character, Hermione thought. Every detail was effortlessly tasteful, elegant, and appropriate, the perfect embodiment of Willow Pruitt soon to be Weasley.

Willow showed just the right amount of emotion throughout although Ron became quite verklempt, and Hermione handed a handkerchief down the line of groomsmen to him. She chewed a hole in the side of her mouth to prevent herself from crying and steadfastly blocked that part of her mind that kept threatening to imagine herself opposite Ron.

She ensconced herself in Weasleys during the dinner and dancing to avoid the rather hostile Ravenclaw flock at the other end of the head table. Fleur was sitting this one out as bridesmaid because of two-month-old Victoire, who was easily the most striking baby Hermione had ever seen, not that she had much of a frame of reference. She held the baby, danced with all the brothers, Harry, and Ginny. She was preparing to leave when Ron sidled over and took her back on the floor.

“You seem…so much better,” she sighed into his ear.

“Than what?” he laughed.

“Than last summer, than last year.”

“Oh, yeah. It was bad. Mum was so bad off, and I couldn’t help her, and it was just awful. I feel like I…I took it out on you. I’m sorry about that.”

 “Don’t even think about that. I didn’t feel that way. I’m just glad that you seem so happy now. Congratulations, Ron, sincerely. She is…so perfect, and you have chosen well.”

“Please don’t disappear, Hermione,” he said quietly. “I can’t lose you.”

“Come on, you won’t get rid of me. Where else have I to go for the major holidays?” She kept it light.

“You will meet someone, and you will have _his_ family,” he said.

Hermione resisted the urge to remind him that he could have easily kept her in the family. “Hasn’t happened yet, and even if it does, you and Harry your whole lot will always be my first family, okay?”

“I adore her, Hermione, but she can’t tell me who my friends are.”

The song ended, and she squeezed him for a moment before finding the Weasleys to say goodbye and then apparating back to Covington.

Snape was sitting at a table outside the closed café when she emerged from the alley.

“That’s quite…” he apparently couldn’t find words for her ensemble.

“I know, I know. Unfortunate news: period was early so the park is rather closed at the moment. Could we possibly get a drink?” She expected him to disappear.

“Only if you will wear that.”

He was already in his charcoal wool trousers and jacket and white button-down.

“I can’t imagine why you would want to be seen with me in this monstrosity.”

He said nothing but looked quite amused.

“If you will add a tie,” she sighed.

A flick of the wand and he was wearing a black long-tie and heading up the street toward the pub they had visited the night of the Ministry gala.

“Let me take the potion, and I’ll meet you there,” she called, walking up the steps. The balsamum ventris was truly a miracle substance. She downed a small phial and then transfigured her robe slightly so it looked more like a dress. While she was at it, she decreased the volume of the hips, lost the bum bow, shrank the sleeves, and made the neckline significantly more flattering. She refreshed her lipstick and bounded out after him.

He was waiting for her with drinks at a small table when she arrived. He looked directly at her tits, now showcased much better.

“Cheating,” he said.

“You can hardly blame me.”

“Weasley is married?”

“More than properly; cheers,” she clinked her glass of gin and tonic against his pint.

“No journal tonight.”

“I saved it for breakfast if you’ll stay. I have a thousand questions, of course.”

“How could I resist.” He lit a cigarette and took a long drag and then offered her one.

“No, thanks.” The pub was packed and she had to sit quite close to him at a banquette in the corner. She rested her hand on his thigh because it was right there, but also to see how he would react. He ignored it and waved to a passing employee for two more drinks.

“Will you tell me about your job, then?”

“Not much to tell. I brew, and I don’t have to teach.”

“But you’re running clinical trials?”

“Clinical trials,” he scoffed. “Your ability to out-Muggle yourself is truly impressive, Granger.”

“You know what I mean,” she said through her teeth as their new drinks arrived. She slugged down the rest of the old and started in on the new.

“Am I testing potential remedies? Yes.”

“Thank you. That was so difficult, I’m sure.”

“Lighten up.”

“That’s rich. You live in London?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because you lived at school for…how many years? I’m just making conversation, Snape.”

“I don’t live in London. I wasn’t born at Hogwarts.”

“Alright, fine. Be a man of mystery.” It’s not like she really cared anyway.

“You are predictably easy to wind up.”

“Right back at you, Snape,” she said and moved her hand up to put on the table quite away from his leg but inadvertently brushed against rather a bulge. “In more ways than one, apparently.”

“Cheeky,” he said, but he didn’t seem particularly annoyed.

“I would be happy to take care of that for you,” she said. The second gin and tonic was probably her eighth drink of the night, albeit spread over several hours. “You wouldn’t be at my mercy.”

He threw some quid on the table and rose to leave. She gathered her voluminous skirt and followed. Her high heels were more precarious after the two latest drinks. He took her arm as she staggered a bit leaving the pub.

“As tempting an offer as it is, Granger, you seem more suited for a sober-up and a bed.”

“You don’t have to constantly exert your dominance. I’m a willing participant in…whatever this is. I wouldn’t dream of trying to control you,” she said, enjoying the alcohol lubricated candor.

“Oh no? You never try to manipulate me with fry-ups and career consultations?”

“Come on, Snape, that’s just being friends.”

“Is that how you view this? As a friendship?” He stopped in the deserted street and looked her directly in the eye. “This gives some insight into the inner-workings of the Golden Trio,” he said the last bit with blatant mockery.

She swung his hand along and pulled him, continuing their walk up the street.

“Yes, I view it as a friendship of sorts. I enjoy your company, Snape.” They walked in silence until they reached her flat. “Are you sure you don’t want to come up?” She was counting on him to decline because she was certain she would vomit very soon.

“I’ll see you next week, Granger. Take the sober up,” he said and disappeared with a pop.


	13. Chapter Seven: October 1999

**Chapter Seven**

**October 1999**

 

It had become immediately apparent from the first moments of employment that despite her lofty job description, she was a woefully underqualified veterinarian. The training was shockingly rapid. The healers presented their craft as an art much more so than a science, and one that she could learn easily because of her adeptness with a wand. This was both terrifying and frustrating to Hermione.

She continued to supplement her education with everything she could find about healing and anatomy. She picked up a new journal at Flourish and Blotts and continued noting everything: sources to read, anatomic illustrations, common procedures and therapies, lists of symptoms, and page after page of questions.

By early September, the Ministry and hospital was expecting her to treat creatures in her small exam room, and was sending her all over the Isles for cases that couldn’t be moved. She had gone to Hogwarts twice and had spent hours each time with Hagrid asking him pages of questions. He revealed that he worked mostly on instinct, which made him the perfect creature healer per Ministry standards. This went against Hermione’s fundamental best judgement in every sense.

She used these cases to learn not only how she was expected to work, but to expand the knowledge and practice with the hope of setting new standards for the future.

She had no opportunity to even begin to study the question of elves.

Her work space consisted of a small office and exam room in the basement of the hospital. She was in the same hall as the large brewing lab, most of which was devoted to maintaining the massive hospital stores, but a corner was used for brewing experimental potions. This was Professor Snape’s lair.

The whole bottom floor shared a staff room where meals and tea were served around the clock for the “rats” as they were known by the rest of the hospital staff. The perception of the basement and its dwellers by the rest of the staff seemed to be that both the people and the environment were dark, distant, and probably smelled bad. Hermione found that this was not usually the case.

Every day she was on site, she took her lunch and tea with Professor Snape. The first day she had looked around the room for a place to sit at the morning tea break. He had looked up and jerked his head slightly. She took that as _come sit by me_ so she did. They both wore white lab robes with their names stitched in blue over the left breast pocket. His read _Snape_ and hers read _Granger-Weasley_. The first one she was issued just said _Weasley_ , but she sent it back with the correction.

They solved the quandary of what to call each other the first week.

“Professor Snape?”

“I’m not a professor. Just call me Snape.”

“I couldn’t possibly. You have no idea how many times I corrected people, insisting you were not just _Snape_.”

“Listen, Miss Granger…”

“And I’m not Miss Granger.”

“That is true. Please just call me Snape. I’ll call you Granger or Granger-Weasley, if you prefer.”

“Granger is fine. You could call me Hermione.”

“Let’s not.”

“I like your given name, for the record.”

“It’s ridiculous although not more so than yours.”

She shot him a wounded look but she found his opinion amusing more than anything else.

“The only people who called me Severus were my mother, Riddle and that lot, and the faculty at Hogwarts. I vastly prefer Snape.”

Snape it was. Granger and Snape found a permanent corner of a table in the staff room that became so much theirs that other rats who carelessly sat in that spot were moved by a withering stare, usually issued by both.

They were maneuvering around their new relationship, not quite sure what was appropriate to discuss. She saw him pouring over the real estate pages of the _Prophet_ and since she and Ron had just bought a townhouse, she couldn’t resist asking.

“Are you moving, then? I suppose you no longer live at Hogwarts.”

“No.”

“Looking in town?” She felt it was a rather stupid question as it left her mouth. “I mean, where are you now?”

He looked at her for a moment. “My family has a home up north, outside Manchester. I’m trying to sell it. It’s a hovel, so… Anyway, yes, I’d like a flat here.”

“We just bought in Waverly, not large, but nice enough. Where are you looking?”

“Not in Waverly.”

“No, I suppose not.”

Hermione loved both their townhouse and their neighborhood filled with families with young children. Snape would not find it charming.

He put down the _Prophet_. “I’m thinking of renting or perhaps buying a small flat in a Muggle area.”

“That _would_ be more private. Your current house, it’s in a Muggle neighborhood?”

“Yes, warded to the hilt, of course.”

“I take the _Guardian_ in the morning. I like to keep up, and it makes me think of…simpler times. Would you like me to bring it tomorrow so you can look at listings?”

He considered her for a moment. “Yes, Granger, that would be helpful.”

Hermione had her journal out at every meal and break, sipping her tea while interrogating her companion.

“Muggles spend years in school before they are allowed to treat patients,” she vented to him.

“How many years of training and experience did you have before you drove that needle in me?” he asked in a tone she was beginning to recognize as more humourous than she had ever realized at school.

“That was an emergency! And I’m sorry for the stich work, by the way.”

“It was fine.”

She didn’t suppose he would let her see it, but she gazed at his neck with a little smile, and he sighed and then loosened his collar and whispered an incantation, dropping a glamour. His neck looked distressed, but the scar was straight and looked quite professional. She beamed, and he looked annoyed and rebuttoned.

“Muggle doctors have to remove organs from one person and then place them in another. It’s not the same as healing,” he said.

“But this…I’m expected just to do. Not to understand, just to... It’s an exercise in charms and little else.”

“What do you need to understand more than what works?” he asked her with the skill of the classroom master he could be.

“I need…perhaps that’s not the correct word. I want…I feel I _should_ understand what I am doing, and why it’s effective.”

“You want to understand everything. That is not the job.”

“But shouldn’t it be? Shouldn’t we be curious as to why this works and not that? Isn’t that how progress is made?”

“Is it?” He would just bore into her eyes in these moments.

“Yes, don’t you think so? Isn’t that what you’re doing?”

“I’m not a healer.”

“I’m not sure I should be, either. It wasn’t exactly the job description. I thought I was to be a researcher. I’m here in the department.”

“Aren’t you a researcher? Isn’t that what that…book is?” He indicated her journal.

“Yes. I suppose.”

“You can’t be surprised that the…operation that employs you is more interested in what you can do for them than how you can satisfy your own curiosity. Surely you are not that naïve.”

“Surely not,” she tossed a paper serviette into the bin beside them and cut her eyes at him. “It’s not my fault. I had a teacher who required me to question everything and assume nothing.”

“Just one teacher?”

“One in particular. He drove me mad.”

“Good to be rid of him.”

“You have no idea.”

As she learned more about her job and responsibilities, she continued using him as a constant resource and sounding board. She always had journal and quill with her to note his observations and thoughts.

“How much research has been done on the effects potions have on non-human creatures?”

“Very little,” he sniffed.

“So, the guides I have include suggested doses are almost certainly based exclusively on the weight of the subjects and not how they might react in the patient.”

“I see no evidence to the contrary.”

“Holy Merlin. So if the average elf is three stone? Three and a half?

“Reasonable supposition.”

“An adult elf might be given the same dose of the same potion as a human child. What about research on how cognitive ability and the relationship of potions?”

“Cognitive ability? Sounds rather species-ist.”

“Right,” she scribbled furiously and then thought out loud. “So…differences in cognitive… function, yes?”

He sipped his tea and waited for her to continue.

“Differences in cognitive function—surely there are brain…functional variations, even in higher order, elementary observations of behavior render this hardly debatable…”

“That’s a leap, Granger.”

“Is it? Surely…”

“SURELY it requires study of the brains in question.”

“You’re right of course. I’ll just sign up to autopsy the next elf who gives her body to the Ministry.”

“Which is why we have so little research.”

“Let’s put elves aside for a moment. No research on the subjects I see every day, correct.”

“Very little.”

“And no way of knowing how potions react in their brains except rudimentary success and failure rates?”

“Rates that now dictate the efficacy and dosage.”

“So we have a lot of work to do,” she hardly looked up from the journal.

“I suppose we do.”

They took lunch and two tea breaks every day, but Ron consistently worked the second shift, which was three to eleven P.M., so she started taking dinner there as well. The kitchen of St. Mungo’s was on the other side of the building and primarily serviced the large staff room used by most of the healers and other employees. Trays appeared for the rats three times a day. The food was not as good as what Hogwarts offered, but it wasn’t terrible, and it was better than Hermione could prepare on her own although she was trying to learn.

She would return to her empty townhouse most nights. There was a small sitting room and kitchen in the front, and then upstairs a decent sized lavatory and master bedroom with two smaller rooms for children.

Hermione and Ron had decided to wait a few years before they started trying for a baby to allow each to establish themselves in their careers. There were so many children about in the neighborhood, though, it was impossible not to feel some pressure. That nagging fear that was always there bubbled to the surface again for Hermione. Would she even be able to conceive a child? Would she be able to carry one to term? Was she damaged? That they had tabled the question of babies made her feel somewhat relieved, but that doubt was always just there. What would they do if she failed in this area? Would he leave her?

 Her periods continued to be both a problem and a worry. She no longer had access to Madam Pomfrey’s balsamum ventris, and the versions she found in the apothecary were pale substitutes. It was difficult to work on the first day, and she had little choice but to broach the topic with Snape over tea. She hoped wouldn’t put him off it.

 “Did you brew all the potions in the hospital stores at school?”

 “Yes, why, did you have an adverse reaction to something and a subsequent grievance?”

 “Quite the contrary. I’m missing the balsamum ventris. Nothing else begins to work as well.”

 “That’s not difficult.

 “You’ll give me the instructions?”

He didn’t say anything, he just walked over to the sink to rinse his cup and then returned to work. A lunch, he had a carton of twelve phials with an instruction card on the bottom.

 “This is a year’s supply. If we’re not here in a year, it’s not a difficult brew.”

The thought that they wouldn’t be there in a year gave her a little pang. “Thank you, so much, Snape.” She was touched by his effort more than she had been with any gesture toward her in quite a while. It emboldened her. “May I ask you something rather personal?”

 “If you must.”

 “I have needed this potion only since after I was cursed at the Malfoy’s. It’s…well, it’s worrisome.”

 “You think the cruciatis damaged you?”

 “That’s what I fear…so much so that I hesitate to go to a healer because I’m afraid of the news I would receive. She put her wand…right on my hip, right next to my reproductive organs.”

 “I had countless cursing wands pointed at every organ in and on my body for years, and I haven’t had lasting damage to any of them. I suspect it’s a coincidence. I’m not an expert on the reproductive system, but I doubt any problems you had had are a result of the cursing. You should see a healer, though, Granger. You know that. Ignorance will not improve anything.”

 “I know. Thank you, again, for the potion and for the advice.” She smiled at him, and he gave her a half one in return.

 She made the next available appointment in the appropriate department upstairs, and the healers found nothing amiss. Periods changed over time, the kind woman assured her. It was one less thing to worry about although there were plenty more areas of concern in her relationship with Ron.

 Nothing about marriage had been easy so far. Working opposite schedules meant that she didn’t see Ron very often during the week. She would come home after dinner and talk to Ginny via floo network, and invariably Harry would arrive at Grimmauld Place before Ron would. Ron liked to visit the pub and look at the quidditch scores or play chess, and Hermione usually had to go to bed so she wouldn’t sleep through work. She would sense him joining her in bed after she had been asleep for an hour or two.

Usually she would reach for him, and more often than not he would tell her he was too tired, and to go back to sleep. Once or twice a week, he would respond and take her in his arms. She told herself to stop initiating all the time, that it was humiliating to be rejected, and that he could set the schedule since it was up to him anyway. Most times, though, she would reach for him before she had fully woken up. It was hard to control.

 If Snape noticed she was staying for dinner more often and not running out of there to home and husband, he didn’t mention it. He talked a bit about his flat search, and then when he found one, she brought him a little potted herb garden to sit on his kitchen window.

 “Are you suggesting I leave more promptly and cook for myself?”

 “Oh, please don’t; I’d have to eat with them.” She looked nonchalantly to the table to their left will with fellow rats that tended to uncouth table manners and loud conversations centered on the witch of the day in the _Prophet_.

 “They would worship you.”

 “Highly unlikely. I won’t be here tomorrow, by the way, I have to go to Cornwall and see to some streelers.”

 “Social disorders?”

 “No doubt. The purple ones are such princesses, I swear.”

 “See you Monday, then.”

 “Yep, have a good weekend, Snape.”

 “Dinner at the Burrow Saturday?”

“Of course. Don’t worry; I’ll smuggle in your pudding.” Snape salivated over her leftovers she brought in after the weekend, so Hermione had begun to share. She realized that what he really wanted was just the dessert.

 “Not if it’s a bother,” he said rather sniffily.

 “It’s certainly not. Molly would have her feelings hurt if I didn’t request a takeaway at this point.”

 “We can’t have that.”

“No. Enjoy the quiet. Enjoy the new flat.”

She threw her refuse in the rubbish bin and turned to wave at him before leaving.


	14. Chapter Eight: February 2004

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Four and a half years later...

**Chapter Eight**

**February 2004**

She started her shift, as on every weekday, at 5:00 A.M. Thursdays had always been her least favorite days, and she had a department meeting today that would prevent her from getting in a run between the café and office. She planned on running a half marathon in April, and she needed get some consistent miles in if she wanted to finish with a respectable time. She couldn’t afford race fees, so she would run the course the week after the race with a time goal and placement in mind. She had her best ideas during her runs. They kept her moderately sane. She would miss her five miles today.

She had walked downstairs in enough time to drink a cup of coffee with Marilyn and Molly before she unlocked the door to the café at 5:00 A.M. sharp. Bob had died in 2002, and Marilyn had hired a cook for the late breakfast and lunch crowds. Molly now returned to the Burrow mid-morning because there were often grandchildren about.

Hermione served breakfast for two and a half hours before she took her own egg, tea, and toast as soon as her relief arrived at work. She waved to Marilyn and Molly before bounding back up the stairs for a quick shower and work appropriate clothes. She only owned only a few pieces for work; she used charms and transfiguration to make the same garments different styles and colours. Today, her skirt was a charcoal pencil, and her jumper was deep wine. She put on her black wool overcoat she had bought secondhand and that would become a cloak as soon as she crossed into the wizarding streets. Her work robe was hanging on the coat tree in her shared office. She grabbed her current work journal from her desk and headed out the door for the fourteen block trek to the university.

This was her third year as an instructor in the magical creatures department. There were four full-time faculty positions, and Professor Lewis had offered her one after she had completed her studies three years ago. She had declined. She taught two basic level courses and worked as a lab assistant for the whole faculty. She had devoted the rest of the time to her own project.

Although she had never published, she certainly had researched and written enough for three volumes. To accept a position on the faculty, she would have to share her work. To do that, she would have to trust her colleagues enough not to harm the population of elves she studied. She didn’t.  

Her primary fear was that her work would become public and healers, researchers, or government officials would experiment on them without trust or consent. She was also afraid that some of what she had learned would be truly shocking to the wizarding society, and that the Ministry would insist on changes and regulations. That wouldn’t necessarily be a bad development in Hermione’s opinion, but she never trusted the Ministry to do anything right or well.

The elves who worked at the university had granted her significant access into their society. She wasn’t sure if she was the first human to be let in to the degree that they had. If other humans had gone before her, they had certainly kept it quiet. The differences between human existence and that of the elves was stark.

They didn’t mate for life or even long term. Pregnancies typically resulted in litters of three or four offspring. Of the litters, usually one, rarely two, and never more that Hermione had found, survived infancy. The mothers only had enough milk and enough time and resources for one baby. It must be an evolutionary quirk that would perhaps work itself out in several generations, but in the meantime, seventy-five percent of newborn elves died within the first six weeks of their lives.

These tiny bodies had typically been wrapped in a ripped corner of a tea towel and taken care of by an older matriarch in the society. Hermione had met her three years before, and the elf had allowed Hermione to witness how she cared for the tiny packages. After Hermione established enough trust, she was occasionally allowed to have one of the bundles for study before the old elf, whose name was Peri, (Hermione had learned elves heard high-pitched sounds clearly and tended to favor two-syllable names that ended on an up-pitch) would return to collect the corpse.

Because of the trauma and grief associated with childbirth and motherhood, female elves tried to protect themselves from mating after the birth of their first litter. There was some evidence that several generations ago, female elves had tried contraceptive potions and charms without success. The charms were simply ineffective, and several elves had died after ingesting the potion. From then on, the females relied on refusing to mate using a variety of techniques and strategies.  Hermione was fascinated by the practice of essentially shutting down a biological urge throughout a species. Reproductive difficulties became a chief focus of her study.

She had reached the office she shared with one other instructor and two upper level students in the department. She hung her cloak on the coat tree and put on her robe. Journal in hand, she made it to the faculty conference room just as the department chair flicked his wand and made agendas appear before them.

They were planning for the spring term in April and hoping to expand some of the course offerings.

“I will take whatever you need me to,” she threw out. She was paid per class, and one more would raise her fee by a third. She received a flat fee for her lab work, which she benefited from far more than monetarily. She had, in practical use if not on the official books, her own lab. The faculty rarely stepped foot in there, relying on her work, which was impeccable. She used the lab for far more than her assigned department work.

Twice she had procured the corpse of an adult elf from the population she had—for lack of a better term though it wasn’t ideal—befriended. She had gained a very tenuous, uneasy trust, and when there were unexpected deaths, the community sometimes allowed her in to take the body and study for a day before cremation. Dobby was the only elf she ever knew to have been buried, something she’d learned along the way.

Hours of biology and anatomy at the Muggle university had prepared her to study the bodies in depth. Her ability with charms allowed her to do so without leaving disturbing scars. She navigated her studies with discretion and respect above all else.

She had poured a good portion of her income into her Muggle university studies, but she couldn’t have done the work she had without it. It was worth her modest room and breakfast shift at the café.

They finished out the meeting, and she stopped in the staff room for tea before heading to her desk. Her first class wasn’t until after lunch. She didn’t take her meals in the university center; they were too dear, and she preferred more control over her diet. She still took afternoon tea every day and interacted with the elves in the kitchen as much as they would allow.

She sank into her desk to go over her lessons for that day and perhaps to catch up on some reading. The enchanted parchment on her desk was already half filled. She chatted throughout the day with Harry and Ron when they weren’t in the field. The number of messages she had received already indicated it was a _sit at your desk and catch up on these reports before you are written up_ kind of a day for the boys.

H: Where are you, ‘M?

R: Yeah, come out and play before I strangle myself in code.

H: Fancy pub night? Trivia, and we could use the help.

R: Up against the census office; their command of useless knowledge is daunting.

‘M: I suppose, if it’s not too late.

R: There you are!

‘M: Will your wives be there? Not sure I’m up for a blokes’ night.

Ginny was due to give birth any day to their second child. Willow and Ron’s daughter was about eighteen months old.

H: No Ginny. She’s not been in the best mood lately.

‘M: What do you expect? For Merlin’s sake, Harry. Maybe you should stay home and massage her feet and at least help with James!

H: Hey! I help all the time! She specifically asked for me to find something to do as to not annoy her constantly.

R: Willow and Sophie are at her parents’ tonight. Everyone is happy that I have other plans.

‘M: I’ll try to make it, but I have to do work now, so…

H:  Great! See you at seven.

R:  See you, ‘Mione.

She pulled another interactive parchment out of her drawer. This one was currently blank, and when it was used, tended to be filled with monosyllabic words, _yes_ and _no_ primarily.

G: I’m playing trivia with the boys at Dougal’s tonight. Interested?

She knew his answer and was really making him aware she would be in town that night. She pulled out her work materials. She didn’t usually have quick responses on this one. She was half way through lecture notes when she saw a response appear.

S:  No.

Shocking.

G: Care to meet after?

S: Fine.

A Thursday night liaison was atypical. They spent most Saturday late nights together and had the very occasional weeknight tryst. Because of her café schedule, she preferred an early bedtime especially when she was training for a race, but they tended to be receptive to the others’ needs. This sometimes called for an extra visit.

There had been sabbaticals in their association. (Hermione didn’t find _relationship_ or _friendship_ accurate word choices.) Two of these sabbaticals were because Hermione was dating someone seriously enough that late night Saturdays affairs were not the best idea. Both times, she had probably waited too long to give up her Snape habit—in one instance, she was spending every other night with the person in question that she called her boyfriend before she forced herself to stop it with Snape.

She ended both relationships because she realized she wouldn’t love either as much as she had loved (and in her darkest days admitted that she still loved) Ron, and the sex was never as good as it was with Snape. She suspected that this was not the behavior of a healthy person, and that thought justified breaking it off with both thoroughly decent wizards who deserved better.

The first break of routine was entirely Snape’s doing and happened early on in their…thing. He stopped contacting her after Christmas of 1999. It was as if he had made a New Year’s resolution to rid himself of her. She owled him periodically through the winter and spring and received no response. She had no idea where he lived and had too much dignity to show up at his workplace. She had just about written him off when she received an owl from him in late May 2000.

_May I see you Saturday?_

The message had been waiting for her when she dragged herself home after a full week of work and classes and nothing on her mind beyond bath and bed. Her first instinct was to ignore it. She had quit him. She was ready to start something healthier with more potential. She soaked in the bath and felt so satisfied about this decision. She was growing, improving, making such good life choices.

She promptly finished the bath and shot off a response.

_Sure._

Ron and Harry were so busy with their new jobs and wives. What did she have that was just hers? This secret, fucked up thing with Snape. What was the point of denying it?

They resumed as if they had never stopped. She tried to ascertain why he had ignored her; perhaps he’d had a relationship, but he refused to answer, and she had no way of finding out about most of his life that he declined to share. Perhaps as a consolation, he did mention that he had purchased a small flat in Muggle London but close to St. Mungo’s.

“Might I see it?”

“Perhaps. It isn’t attached to a café, though, so what would be the point?”

He hadn’t asked her to the flat for months after that and then only because she had been at Grimmauld Place at a party at the Potters’ and told him she would be quite late back to Covington. He begrudgingly told her she could meet him outside his flat. He had allowed her to stay about an hour before he had handed Hermione her boots. She rarely had reason to visit London, so nights in his home were rare.

She hadn’t been invited back to any official Ministry functions after her speech during her Order of Merlin ceremony and had never attended any official Remembrance Day celebrations. However, 2003 marked the five-year anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts and ultimate victory. She received a terse letter from the Remembrance Committee informing her that her presence was strongly requested.

She was dating a history professor ten years her senior at the time although not seriously yet. She asked Howard to be her date. He cautiously agreed. He was not used to attention and hadn’t even met Harry and Ron yet, but she convinced him she would keep the whole thing as low key as possible. She asked Molly to invite them all to a dinner at the Burrow a week before so they could become acquainted.

She had a rather stony relationship with Willow; Hermione had tried to win her over for years, but the other witch had remained chillingly formal. Hermione suspected that Howard’s existence would help.

She helped Molly prepare food for a little barbecue in the garden for all three couples and the babies. It was a lovely evening. Howard was very intelligent and perfectly nice. Everyone agreed that he was just the right bloke for her.

It also made Howard fell much more comfortable attending the gala. She owled Snape ahead of time to tell him she would be bringing a guest and cancelling their late-night meet-up. She paid way too much for a new set of dress-robes, topaz-coloured at Molly’s suggestion, and marveled at how well Howard cleaned up. They made a rather dashing couple.

She then spent the whole evening staring at Snape at a near-by table. He was absolutely entranced with the woman seated next to him, a very attractive witch of about forty. They were engrossed in conversation and even whispered to each other during the presentation. Twice, Hermione saw him break down and laugh at something the witch had said. She couldn’t remember a time he had laughed in Hermione’s presence unless it was at her expense. She wasn’t an expert at interpreting human communication, but she could tell that was not why he was laughing with this woman.

Unsuspecting Howard was nothing but accommodating the whole night, He told her how beautiful she looked, he asked her insightful questions about her experiences during the war; she hesitated to talk about it much now, and had only told him vague generalities. He danced with her quite capably. He made sure she had the drinks she liked: a gin and tonic to start and dry, red wine with dinner.

After engaging in warm conversation all night with her dear friends, he saw her back safely to Covington and to his own flat. He kissed her and gently removed her robes and then took her to bed. They’d had sex several times before and it followed a general pattern: he was usually on top, he was attentive to her needs, making sure she came first and then thrusting hard to his own orgasm, and then he held her until he fell asleep. She knew she could take charge and change things up a bit, but she hadn’t been motivated to do so thus far.

At first, it was such an obvious contrast to her usual sexual encounters that she found it rather charming. She told herself _this is what normal feels like_. Not that she would really know; her few one night stands with Muggles had been unmemorable, and her relationship with Ron had been fraught because of the times. She could picture married couples fucking like this although averages dictated there must be some variation going on somewhere in marital coitus. She would then speculate about what her married acquaintances were like in bed: Ron desperately clinging to Willow as she examined her nails, Harry and Ginny having a good ol’ time, joking throughout, Bill worshiping Fleur’s body. She would finally shuck Howard’s arms that made her feel too cloistered to sleep and drift off.

In the morning, running gave her the perfect excuse to leave his flat before breakfast.

The night of the gala she was silently seething the whole time he went through his routine.  If she had cared enough about the whole affair, she would have taken charge and fucked him angrily from on top.

He kissed her gently, and she was still so mad she could have bitten his tongue. She remained composed, however, and spent the night, taking hours to fall asleep, picturing Willow and Ron returning home from the gala and what would happen between them. They kept morphing into Snape and the woman he had been seated next to, and she would abruptly edit back to Willow and Ron and their uneven lovemaking.  She rose very early for a long run and took her fury out on the pavement.

What the hell was she so enraged over? That Ron clearly loved his wife? That Snape had a date? She’d had a date! What kind of hypocrite was she? That Snape obviously liked this woman bounds more than he liked her? Howard was a more decent person than Snape…twelve arguments to the contrary immediately clouded her brain. _Okay, fine_. Howard was a kinder person. Howard was a more suitable mate. Howard made sense. Howard wanted a family. Little James and Sophie and Bill and Fleur’s growing brood had made her realize she wanted a baby of her own somewhere in the relatively near-future. With Howard, that could easily be reality.

When she saw Snape the next Saturday—lying to Howard about her period when she had been taking a new Snape developed potion for a year that made it practically non-existent—she flung herself against him before he was properly in the door. He played along, throwing her clothes off and only allowing her to loosen his placket before he whispered a fast incantation and plunged himself in her and then fucked her just inside the door. She pushed him off and sprinted to the little kitchen table where she splayed herself for him. He followed quickly and flipped her over, pinning her against the table and fucking her from behind.

Her hipbones were slamming into the table against the wall, and she would pay for this tomorrow, but in the present it was everything she wanted. She staved off her orgasm as long as she could, refusing his hand until the inevitable was right there. She came just as he exploded in her with a soft wail she had never heard from him.

They sank on to her immaculately clean floor.

“Merlin’s…Granger.” He was out of breath.

She removed his robe and then tucked his cock back into his trousers, re-buttoning the placket, and he seemed too breathless to care. She left him on the floor for a moment while she retrieved her knickers and pulled them on and then put on an oversized t-shirt to cover herself. She walked to the counter to put on the kettle, and offered him a hand, which he ignored, being fully capable of rising from the floor on his own.

She readied the tea cups just as the kettle hissed. She took it as her cue to broach the topic that had occupied her thoughts for the last week.

“If you have a girlfriend, we should probably…” she started.

“What girlfriend?”

“At the Ministry.”

“What are you talking about?”

“At the gala. You were sitting next to…”

“My colleague. Her husband was seated next to her.”

“Your colleague?”

“Healer Gould.”

“Oh,” Hermione brought the cups to the table and was horrified about how relieved she felt.

Snape had published several articles with Esther Gould, who specialized in health specific to witches. She was a childbirth expert, but she also was the leader in reproduction research. Snape had been studying potions in conjunction with her work and had developed several break-through remedies, including the one that controlled Hermione’s periods. She took it every month with her contraceptive, which he also brewed despite casting a charm each time as well. _I DON’T WANT CHILDREN_ could have been tattooed on his forehead,

Hermione’s relief gave way to feelings of foolishness. He wouldn’t be here if he had an alternative. He drank his tea silently, not bothering to ask about her companion at the gala, certainly not threatened or jealous as she had been.

As soon as he finished his cup, he grabbed his robe from under the table and put his arms into the sleeves.

“I could make…”

“No thank you,” he said as he buttoned up his robe. He had the tiniest hint of a smirk on his lips, and she wanted to hide under the table. “Good night,” he said and left immediately.

She owled Howard as soon as she returned from her Sunday long run the next day and asked if he wanted to come over for brunch and then perhaps go see a film. Howard was a pureblood, but he loved all things Muggle culture. He seemed genuinely pleased at the invitation, even the way it arrived. She couldn’t connect her little room to the floo network, so she had to rely on owls. Marilyn would speculate about the mice around the café because of the frequency of owls flying about.

Hermione took a quick shower and then set out to prepare the breakfast she had planned for Snape. Howard didn’t care for kippers, but she had a package of rashers tucked away. She handed him a mimosa as soon as he stepped through her door, and they tucked in.

She had modified her room over the years. She had traded out the single bed with a four-poster with curtains so it could be its own separate area. Every inch of wall was covered in book shelves now, and she had stacks of books as well, on most flat surfaces. She had a work area with a small desk she could expand if she needed. Behind it on one of the bookshelves, was her collection of work journals she had kept since her student days. The ones devoted to her current project were on the center shelf. She was currently on volume forty-three.

She had improved the kitchen area as well. She had a better fridge and a small cooker now to replace the hot plate. She could prepare meals here and often did although she and Snape still crept down to the big kitchen Saturday late nights for nostalgia if nothing else.

Hermione and Howard finished their meal and walked about a mile to the theatre, holding hands the whole way, even when the sweatiness of the exercise made Hermione want to take back her hand and wipe it down her denims. They saw an American action picture that he loved and she mostly tuned out. They took full tea in a café and then returned to Hermione’s room he never judged and her bed he seemed to love. It was so healthy.

She owled Snape that week, telling him that she was going to try to make a relationship work. She tried to be as gracious as possible without being pathetic. She told him she had enjoyed his company. She thanked him for the on-going help he had reluctantly given her throughout the years in her work. She hadn’t revealed the specifics of her research, but he knew the generalities, and she had asked him many questions about his work as it directly related to her own. He had been helpful in his own frustrating way. He didn’t reply to her owl.

In late August, after a summer of romantic dinners and other textbook dates, Howard took her to the nicest restaurant in wizarding Covington and told her he loved her, the first time he had done so not within a minute of an orgasm. He asked her if she would consider something more serious and permanent. She had a flood of panic and the urge to flee immediately. In the end, she was sadder for herself than for him. He was a catch. He would find someone significantly more worthy of him very soon. She was hopeless.

She owled Snape the next day, asking him over for the next Saturday night. He didn’t reply but showed up at her door at midnight. She sunk to her knees and wouldn’t relent until he had come down her throat. That had been six months before. Neither had ever mentioned the sabbatical or her doomed relationship with Howard.

 

 

She taught her Thursday classes without incident, and then rushed home to dress for her evening out and eat her usual boring dinner: a piece of chicken and frozen green vegetable, so she would be full enough not to be tempted by the pub fare.

She transfigured her denims tight to minimize her hips and show off her flat stomach. She tightened her jumper as well, and she charmed her bra to give her small breasts a little push. She had transfigured her sensible work boots to ones with a bit more flair. She took her hair out of the twist, performed a quick cleansing charm, tousled it, and charmed as much of the frizz away as she could. She deemed herself sexy enough and apparated from the alley to wizarding London.

Harry and Ron had messaged her that the topic tonight was medieval history. She was nervous she would embarrass herself, so she had crammed for forty-five minutes before she met her friends.

She shouldn’t have worried. The Aurors with their guest player shellacked the census folks and the rats.

Ron was about a pint in by the time she arrived. He rose to let her into the banquette and called the waitress over to take Hermione’s drink order.

“How are Willow and Sophie? I can’t believe I haven’t seen you since Christmas.”

Ron flicked his wand in the air and filled the space with pictures of his daughter, an adorable red head that looked very much like him.

“She’s already bigger. I have to come around more.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying, ‘Mione.”

He and Harry both were in perfect humour that night, and the evening flew by with jokes and inside comments between the three. She limited herself to one gin and tonic that she nursed the whole night, and she didn’t even nick any of the chips from the blokes’ baskets in front of them. She did very well with the trivia, and Ron kissed her cheek when she had a flawless third round that put them so far ahead the fourth was just for sport.

Pressed up against the inside wall with Ron at her side she imagined what they would be like as a real couple, laughing as much as they were that night. Perhaps that’s why it felt so off with Howard—it wasn’t that she couldn’t stand a normal life and relationship, it was just the wrong man. If she had stuck with Ron years ago, perhaps she would be living that life happily right now with her own little red-headed baby daughter.  

She begged off at eleven and discretely apparated to the doorstep outside Snape’s flat.

“You reek of cigarettes, Granger,” he said in a disgusted tone.

“Sorry.”

He had quit smoking two years ago and now complained vociferously now any time his nose detected a hint of tobacco.

“Should I pop in for a quick shower?”

“Wouldn’t hurt,” he said with a sneer.

She laughed him off and walked down the hall to the small bath. She removed her clothes and cast a deodorizing charm and then spelled her hair on top of her head before stepping into the steaming shower. He had a bar of soap that smelled exactly like him and she soaped her whole body except her face, wanting to spare her makeup. About three minutes in, she heard the door open and clothes hitting the floor. A surge of arousal hit her immediately, and she made room for him in the tiny stall.

She had seen him completely naked enough times over the years, but it was a rare enough occurrence in bright light that she had to stop herself from staring. His neck had healed completely, and to see that scar—her scar—one would have to know what to look for. He didn’t need the glamour anymore. She resisted the urge to kiss it, to run her tongue along it. She finished the business of her shower and reached for a towel she had left just outside the curtain, stepped through and wrapped herself. She wanted to stretch out on his bed rather than being taken from behind in his shower. She heard him grumble from behind the curtain, which brought a little smirk to her mouth. She unpinned and shook out her hair, which still smelled of smoke, so she drew her wand and deodorized it quickly.

Wrapped in the big towel, she walked into his small but tidy bedroom. His bed, a stately four-poster that looked as if it had arrived with him from Hogwarts took most of the space. The bed clothes were tasteful white linen, and despite the rather gothic bed, the room looked more like the lair of a bachelor of a certain age than the half-blood Slytherin Prince.

She made certain her back was dry before she stretched out on the bed with her knees bent and slightly parted and waited for him, lightly twisting her nipples with one hand and languidly rubbing her clitoris with the other. When she heard him turn the water off and start toward his room, she took her hands away and rolled on her belly with her legs bent behind her and crossed at the ankle. She tossed her curls over one shoulder.

His hair was wet and dripping slightly, and he had a towel slung low on his hips. She stopped herself from gasping with want and tried to just look at him serenely. She could tell his cock under the towel was about half erect, and he kept the covering wrapped around him as climbed into the bed from the end and scooped her up under his arm, nudging her onto her back. He kissed her mouth. All traces of his former grumpiness were gone. He kissed down her body, spending ample time on her breasts before continuing to make his way to her center. She caressed his head until it was out of reach.

She put her feet lightly on his shoulders and let him go to work. He knew exactly what she liked and how to prolong and control her pleasure. Her splayed fingers gripped the linen as she rose higher and higher, and she loudly encouraged him as he licked and sucked and drove in with his fingers.

When she was on the verge of orgasm, he abandoned the project abruptly. He whispered his blasted incantation. The towel had fallen from his hips and he was fully hard as he entered her in one thrust and clamped his mouth on hers.

He moved in her silently but with growing vigor, and she stayed deliciously suspended on the edge, just enjoying the ride. She squared her hips under him, so he had room to move but clamped down on his cock every time he came home.

He started a low moan in response and was hurtling toward his own orgasm when he finally brought his fingers down and she came almost instantly, this time dragging him along. They both vocalized loudly, though wordlessly through the space. She arched her back as every nerve lit up and then crested down.

“Fuck,” he whispered and collapsed on top of her.

She giggled very quietly and allowed him to lie there for a few moments before she rolled out from under him and off the bed, scooping up her towel on the floor. She walked naked into the bathroom.

She looked at her face in the bathroom mirror, and she was still slightly reddened. She looked happy and prettier, she thought, than she had seen herself in a while. She put on her much better smelling clothes quickly and hung her towel neatly on the rack. Her socks and boots were in the sitting room, so she re-entered his bedroom in her bare feet and found him still practically passed out on the bed, not having moved since she saw him last. He rolled over at the sound of her entrance, and she smiled at him.

“Thank you, Snape, that was lovely. Café tomorrow…” she leaned down to kiss him; she planned to plant a little peck on his lips, certainly more friendly than he almost always left her, but he reached for the back of her head with his hand and brought her in for a real kiss, with real passion. She braced her hand on the bedside table as not to swoon, and finished the kiss with a final peck.

“Well…I’ll see you Saturday?”

He just looked at her.

“Alright then, good night!”

She walked as staidly as possible, trying to control the giddiness that was bubbling up. She made it to the sitting room, put on her socks, zipped on her boots, and tossed her curls with delight as she left for home.


	15. Chapter Eight: February 2004

**Chapter Eight**

**February 2004**

Hermione threw up her breakfast before she could even leave for work and then confirmed the pregnancy, slowly swirling her wand over her abdomen. The tell-tale white aura appeared before her. She sighed audibly.

It shouldn’t be a shock; she had gone off the contraceptive potion the month before, but it had taken them six months to conceive Rose, and she had convinced herself that she would certainly have some secondary infertility. She had suspected she would have nine months at least before she had to face another pregnancy, another impending birth, another round of sleepless nights, and another period of months and months and months pumping breast milk in her little office.

She felt overwhelmed and closed the lid on the toilet before she sank down. She could hear Ron and Rose laughing at the breakfast table.

“If only I could find Rosie!” she heard him say in a loud, perplexed voice, followed by her daughter's little giggles. _More of that_ , she forced herself to think. _More joy_.

She pinned up her hair and tried to avoid looking at herself in the mirror. She had not yet lost the stone she put on with Rose. She had planned to work on that during the months it would take them to conceive the second one, and that by the time she became pregnant, she would be close to her original weight. Now she was starting here, and would have to gain as little as possible and still maintain a healthy pregnancy. Her work robes were hanging against the bathroom door, and she put them on before she examined her image more closely and then added the few cosmetic touches she used for work.

Ron had been more than willing to go back to his second shift schedule after Rose was born. That meant he was home with her most of the day, took her to the Ministry nursery at three, and then Hermione picked her up promptly at five. They loved having her home most days and not having to rely on full-time childcare, but it meant that Hermione and Ron rarely spent time together during the week.

She emerged from the bathroom and gathered her work bag. She had been writing the analytical narratives of some tests she and Snape were running, and Hermione had worked for two hours after Rose had gone to bed the night before.

She walked into the kitchen to say goodbye and kissed Rose on the top of her honey coloured curly head. She was ninety percent Hermione with Ron’s deep blue eyes. Hermione wondered if the new baby would be a red head like most of his or her cousins. She thought for a moment whether she should sit down and share her news with her husband, but she just couldn’t face it at the moment. She would have to very soon, but she was happy to keep it to herself until she could legitimately express some happiness. Ron did not react well to Hermione’s tendency towards ambivalence about subjects that in his mind were starkly clear. A baby was a miracle to be celebrated; there was no acceptable alternative reaction.

She leaned over and pecked him lightly on the mouth. He closed his lips automatically and pulled away as soon as they made contact.

“Bye, lovies!” she sang out in her customary way.

“Bye, Mummy!” Ron said, and Rose waved her little hand.

“Mummy!” Rose said in her quiet voice. For a baby who spent her first four months wailing plaintively, she had emerged shockingly soft-spoken as a toddler.

Hermione flooed to the basement at St. Mungo’s and dropped her bag into her desk chair, sifting through to organize her papers and set up her day. She looked on the docket; it was light on clinical, thank Merlin. She had two consultations that afternoon, one with Ministers from the Department for Control of Magical Creatures and then with the Department of Research, but she was in town the whole day and would have plenty of lab time.

She had made notes the night before to consult some reference materials to help her analysis of the results she and Snape were seeing, so she prepared her desk for work. She pulled a heavy volume from her shelves and began.

They were testing potions to treat toxin exposure on a series of creatures from very simple sea dwellers with only a few cells, to the most complex beings they had available.

In her four and a half years on the job, she’d never had the chance to treat or even examine any higher order creatures. She hadn’t given up hope, but it seemed unlikely unless she could find a way to convince the populations to see her, and if she could trust the Ministry not to make things worse.

She and Snape had published a dozen studies and had conducted potions research that had benefited not only the magical creatures but humans as well. The year before they had published a book that was becoming a standard of care for potion dosage in non-humans. They had been celebrated throughout the wizarding healing community, and even beyond, to the wizarding community at large.

They worked together in the lab for at least two hours a day when she was in town. Sometimes on a day with few actual patients, she would spend more hours than not perched on the counter of his lab taking notes and prepping tests.

She wanted to complete her paper work by ten A.M. tea time that day so she could work in his lab with him until lunch.

The two morning work hours flew, and she even forgot about the pregnancy until she was seated at their table with him. She looked down at her steaming cup and nearly wretched. She tried to play it off by taking a tentative sip, but he was watching her as if she were a subject of study.

 “Are you ill?” he rumbled across the table at her.

She was hesitant to have this conversation with him and wary about potentially betraying Ron by discussing it with Snape before she had told him. Not only had she suffered throughout her last pregnancy and had been off her game at work, it had taken months after Rose’s birth, even after she had returned to work, to have their projects back on track. She felt as if there was this palpable dynamic between them that Snape was the steady together one, and she was the total disaster. She wanted him to see her as supremely competent, and she feared that she fell short often.

“In a manner of speaking.”

She put her head down and rested her cheek on the cool surface of the table. It made her feel marginally better. She looked up at him.

“Congratulations?” he said.

She made a quiet, frustrated noise and moved her head so that her forehead was now touching the surface, and she could no longer see him.

“Surely this was planned?” _You cannot be this great an idiot_ was implied. “I stopped brewing you contraceptive…”

“Yes, of course it was planned, but I thought it would take longer. I thought I would have months…”

She rolled her head back and shifted so the other cheek could have some cool surface.

“I suppose Weasley is happy with the news?” he said. They avoided talking about Ron most of the time because Snape found it impossible to hide his disdain. Even now it was dripping off the sentence.

“He doesn’t know yet,” she said quietly.

He drained his cooled tea in two swift gulps, took both cups to the sink and then strode back. “Come on,” he said.

Throughout her early pregnancy with Rose she had survived on cream crackers and a potion that Snape brewed for her that made her feel almost human. She followed him back to his work space in the lab.

He worked in an L-shaped area that was cordoned off from the rest of the large lab. They often sealed the space for privacy as well as to contain the fumes. There was ventilation, but the people in the lab tried to keep smells in their own space as not to contaminate others’ work or throw off others’ senses of smell.

There was a small portion of counter-top where Hermione usually sat. One time, when she was about seven months pregnant with Rose, she had attempted to hop up there like she did every day, and suddenly realized her body was now too unwieldy to accomplish the feat. She had started to careen down, and Snape had leapt across the space to steady her before she crashed to the floor. She thought about that as she easily hopped up there.

He began the familiar brew. It took about twenty minutes, and the smell immediately brought her back, as if she needed another reality confirmation.

There was an adjacent space that wasn’t visible unless one wall was transfigured. This narrow room expanded to a larger expanse to contain the habitats of their test subjects. Each habitat was charmed to mimic the familiar environments of creatures.

There were no official Ministry guidelines about how to treat nonhuman test subjects, but Hermione did as much as she possibly could to maintain her own ethical standards, sometimes failing. They had killed an entire population of flitterby moths during a study three years before due to a dosage error she was primarily responsible for. She had contemplated finding a new line of work before Snape talked her down. He had been furious about her mistake, but had managed to segue into compassion so quickly that it shocked her.

He stirred her potion. “Will you be up for trivia tonight, then?” he said.

“Of course! It’s medieval history.” Their rats team had a perfect season since quidditch night back in November. Tonight, Hermione wanted to break the scoring record.

Pub trivia aside, she and Snape almost never socialized outside of work. She had convinced him to come over to their house exactly twice and only because they were playing whittig, a wizarding version of bridge modified to mitigate legilimency. They needed four tables with a total of sixteen players. They had to have that number or the whole game fell apart. She had come to Snape when someone had to cancel at the last minute, and he had relented after whole afternoons of cajoling. He was, of course, fantastic at the game and had won the pot on each occasion.

Both times, Ron had behaved abominably, not to Snape exactly; Ron mostly ignored him, but to Hermione. He had criticized her lightly, all in good humour, you know, about everything she did for the entire nights.

For reasons Hermione could not understand, groups brought out the worst in his behaviour. When they were alone, she still tended to irritate him, but he let things pass more easily. In front of an audience, though, he seemed to need to call out every little thing.

She knew he recognized her strengths. He could expound on them: she was intelligent, she was good at her job, she was well-honoured in the wizarding community, she was a caring mother. He had been kind to her when she reached her breaking point during her last pregnancy, during childbirth, and during the months when Rose would cry at least eighteen hours a day. They could be an impressive team. It was the trivial things that seemed to drive him batty.

She didn’t cook the same foods in the same ways as his mother. She never became interested in quidditch. She liked to watch television and clung to other Muggle comforts of her childhood. These things seemed to niggle at him under the surface all the time. Why the company of others prompted him to comment about them, she didn’t know.

Both times Snape had been over, Ron had a go at her cooking. Once, when they were playing on a Saturday night, she had made a traditional roast dinner that was perhaps too inclined to Muggle tastes. The other offense was on a Friday after a work day. She had put out a spread of cold meat and cheese for sandwiches with fruit and biscuits on the side. That time, his complaint was lack of effort.

 “No one opens packages like you, Dear,” he had laughed, and Harry had chuckled uneasily. Ginny hadn’t been able to be there that night, which is why she had convinced Snape to come in the first place.

They’d had a horrendous day at work when nothing had gone as predicted and they’d had to start a study from the beginning, realizing they had wasted two weeks’ worth of testing. She had been in such a state that Snape had finally agreed to be the needed sixteenth chair.

“I even did it all by hand,” she said lightly.

Snape fixed himself a generous sandwich and kept his mouth shut.

“Nothing but the best for guests,” Ron continued.

 “Sod off, Mate,” Harry said and followed Snape at the table preparing his own plate. “This looks lovely, Hermione.”

“Thanks, Harry. Sorry; it’s been crazy lately.”

This had been during the time when she and Ron had been trying to conceive the baby that was ultimately Rose. The fear of being infertile had consumed her. She hadn’t confided much in Ron; She saw no reason to either cause him more stress or give him another reason to find her lacking.

She had been abstaining from all vices and trying to eat as healthily as possible. That night, she consumed sausage and cheese without shame and washed it down with a gin and tonic. She readily allowed Ron to partner with Harry at the game table, and with Snape as her partner, ran away with the victory, and it wasn’t close.

“You should join the game permanently. We can kick George and Willow out,” she told him as the group was lingering after the last hand, finishing up their final drinks before heading home.

The year before, George had married Willow Pruitt, who worked on the same floor as Arthur at the Ministry. Hermione remembered her vaguely from school; she was quiet and pretty in a rather nondescript way. She seemed to lack a sense of humour, which made her an odd choice for George, in Hermione’s opinion. He had to miss card night half the time anyway because the store required so much of his time.

“Good night, Granger,” Snape had said, ignoring her offer. She had been about to tell him he was welcome to bring a date.

She had bumped into him, almost literally, one evening at a wizarding pub the summer before. The whole Weasley gang had been there to celebrate Molly’s birthday. Hermione had made her way through the crowd toward the loo when she had to swerve not to crash into a solid black figure sitting at the bar. It had disoriented her for a moment, because the person was so familiar to her but so out of context in this setting. That black mass had become an extension of herself in a way, and she put her arms around him without even thinking.

It was an odd choice. They were not physically familiar at work. It was completely involuntary, really, but here she was embracing Snape at a pub.

“Hello, sorry!” she had laughed, and he steadied her while removing her from his person with an annoyed harrumph, but a look in his eye that betrayed a glint of affection. It was then she realized he was not alone. “I’m Hermione Granger…Weasley…Snape’s co-worker. Sorry,” she said again, this time for her awkwardness as she extended her hand to a very pretty dark-haired woman her age, who was obviously there with Snape.

“This is Allison,” he said and threw Hermione a look that clearly said, _please don’t stay_.

“Allison, it’s so nice to meet you. We’re here for Molly’s birthday, my mother-in-law,” she clarified for Allison, who was looking at her with a good deal of interest.

“See you Monday, Snape,” she said and proceeded to the loo wracked with curiosity. When she rejoined her table, she saw Snape and Allison walking out the door of the pub and away quickly. She had been obsessed with the woman for the rest of the weekend, quizzing Ginny and Harry about her. No one had any clue. She was their age or perhaps slightly younger, and Hermione had no memory of her from Hogwarts. She couldn’t wait to interrogate Snape.

That Monday, she had slid a piece of Molly’s leftover birthday cake to him at morning tea and started in.

“You could have told me you were seeing someone. Merlin knows I tell you way too much about my life.”

“Nothing to tell,” he had said, absorbed in his cake.

“Is she your girlfriend?”

“Granger, why do you want to talk about this?”

“Because…we’re friends. We’re friends, right?”

“In a manner…,” he had said and then sighed. “She’s not my girlfriend. I’m not a seventh year, for Merlin’s sake. We usually don’t leave the flat. I had a…debacle with the dinner Saturday night, and we needed to eat.”

“Oh,” Hermione had said, but her thoughts were spinning. Allison was his…friend with benefits? Fuck buddy? She had reddened and changed the subject, for which he seemed relieved.

She hadn’t been able to evict Allison from her head. She hadn’t really thought of Snape as a sexual creature until then. He had been her teacher and her co-worker and lately, her closest friend. If she had thought about it at all, she had assumed that he was asexual. She realized this was ridiculous on her part. He was still in his forties. Of course he had a life, had almost certainly had one for years that was beyond her knowledge.

The dungeon bat from her school days and the wounded, hollow man from her last year at Hogwarts had changed dramatically in the years that followed. It was almost as if the alleviated stress had cause him to age in reverse. She had always thought of her teacher as significantly older than he turned out to be; her work colleague seemed years younger than she knew he was.

Thoughts of sexual Snape started creeping in at inopportune times. Her own sex life was problematic at best. Before they had started trying to conceive Rose, they’d had sex about once a month, if she was lucky. About a year into the marriage, she had stopped initiating on a regular basis. It was just too humiliating and demoralizing to be rejected so often.

Ron had told her it annoyed him when she hinted at her desire by gently rubbing his back in bed.

“If you want sex, just ask for it,” he had said in a snit.

The next week she had complied. “Would you like to have sex?” she gathered her nerve.

“’Mione, I’m so tired. It’s been awful at work. I just want to sleep.”

She had tried walking around naked after her nightly shower, but he usually turned around in the bed and pretended to be asleep.

 He wanted to have sex occasionally; that’s when they did.  It usually wasn’t when she was clamoring for it, but she would never turn down the rare chance. There were times during the month when she would have to masturbate two or three times a day to satisfy her libido, and these times rarely matched up with his. She could get herself off in the bath easily and silently, and that helped, but it didn’t carry the psychological satisfaction that making love to her husband provided.

When they actually did make love, it was very good, she thought. He was an eager participant. He always made sure she was satisfied. He typically let her take the lead, but he was game for whatever. She didn’t have to ask for him to go down on her although he rarely stayed long enough for her to come that way. Still, it was part of a perfectly satisfactory routine, the only complaint of which she had was its rarity.

Afterward he would let her kiss him tenderly, which didn’t happen often otherwise, and he would hold her until she fell asleep. There was always a bit of sadness in these encounters for her as she knew she would probably have to wait another month before it was repeated.

She had no girlfriends to confide in that weren’t related to Ron. Once, about eighteen months into their marriage and after too many G&Ts on a pub night, Hermione had broached the subject with Ginny.

“How often do you and Harry…you know…have sex?”

Ginny had practically spit her drink across the table. The blokes were engrossed in a chess match on the other side of the pub.

“Seriously, Hermione? Why?”

“Because I’m concerned about us, about Ron and me. He hardly ever wants to…”

“I can’t state clearly enough how much I don’t want to hear this.”

“I know, Ginny, but I don’t have anyone else,” Hermione pleaded.

“We have it enough, okay? Listen, Hermione, you know that Ron has never really…well, I’m not sure he’s over…”

“I know this, Ginny. But it’s been almost three years, surely…”

“I’m not sure there’s a timetable for these things,” Ginny said sadly. “Not to rub it in, as it were, but if you were bound, that’s comes with all sorts of magic. You wouldn’t have to worry about frequency. From what Mum has said…”

“No, Ginny, I don’t want to know…”

“Well, you asked, and you did want input about my brother’s sex drive. I can tell you what it’s like to grow up in a house when sometimes certain urges take precedence over silencing…”

“Enough, enough, enough!” Hermione was laughing and covering her ears. “Binding is still wrong.”

“Whatever you say.”

When Hermione and Ron decided it was time to try for a baby, the prospect of regular sex excited her more so than impending motherhood, even tinged with fertility anxiety. The act itself tended to be more perfunctory than it had been, but its frequency more than made up for it. The increased activity accelerated her libido, and she felt sexually charged all the time. Snape would brush against her in the lab, and she would almost have to fan herself while contemplating a wank in the loo.

Ron seemed to enjoy the increased frequency as well, especially in those first few months before a bit of _why isn’t this working_ stress began to creep in. They didn’t snipe at each other as frequently. She seemed to annoy him less. She hoped they had turned a corner.

Then she finally became pregnant. She had performed the spell every morning in the bath as she dressed and groomed herself for work. She was so used to seeing no result that she almost fell on the floor when that little white wisp floated from her wand to her abdomen.

“RON!” she had shouted, and he had burst into the door to find her laughing and crying. She twirled her wand and the wisp floated to him. He had picked her up in his arms and spun her. Quidditch matches aside, she didn’t think she had seen him this happy since their wedding day.

Unfortunately, the regular sex ended with the news. Ron was disturbed by pregnancy coitus from the moment the spell came back positive. During the first trimester, she was too sick to care, but after that, her libido came roaring back, and she was once again reduced to wanking in private shame. Not that she rationally thought it was shameful, but it was such a lesser experience, and one she resented in what should have been a healthy marriage.

By the time they were trying for baby two, she had resigned herself to reality. He set the schedule. The procreative sex the second time around was comforting, but not as exciting as the first. She told herself she would be more into it as the months went on, and then she was pregnant immediately.

They had agreed this was their last child. Now she could pin her hopes on surviving the pregnancy and birth and perhaps finally finding a normal pattern they would both enjoy.

 

 

 Snape finished the potion and handed it over. She brought the phial to her lips, and even the familiar smell brought some relief. She downed it and felt the warmth fill her esophagus. She breathed deeply in and out. Thank Merlin.

“Let’s work,” she said and smiled at him. “Or let’s chuck work and go for Chinese.” She was suddenly rather starving.

“That was fast. I think I would rather not spend the afternoon outside the ladies’ listening to you vomit Chinese food, so perhaps work is the better option.”

She was feeling good enough at lunch to eat about half the food on her tray. She would probably lose those extra pounds in the first few weeks. The challenge was not gaining when she was no longer sick all the time and absolutely starving for four months. She tried not to worry about that today.

“Not a bad idea to go ahead and have the second, yes?” Snape asked her. “You and Weasley already have established a routine. This one will come in…?”

“November, I suppose,” she said flatly.

“You can take off the holidays and then perhaps be ready to come back.”

Hermione had returned to work just two months after Rose was born. This was not the way it had been done in the Weasley family, and although everyone was outwardly supportive, it was clear that the decision baffled her female in-laws, and probably some of the males, too. Ron was perfectly willing to adjust his schedule back to second shift, though, and enjoyed being home with Rose during the day.

Ginny had completed a program in teaching on the primary level and had worked at a wizarding school before James was born, but she had never talked seriously about returning to work. Molly was supportive in any way she could be but had never had the experience of being a parent who worked outside the home.

Rose’s difficult infancy made Hermione feel like an abject failure. The constant screaming made her feel totally inadequate as a mother. When both she and Ron were home, they treated the situation like being at war and having to wear that locket. Only one was allowed to be miserable at a time, and they dutifully took turns.

Work was Hermione’s safe place, and she suspected it was the same for Ron. She came into work for months after almost no sleep. Snape found just the right blend of pepper-up, and then helped her taper off the potion as Rose grew older and the crying lessened.

“Yes, I should be back at work by January.” This thought brought as much relief as the potion had.

She tried to avoid being overly critical about her life, but sometimes it was unavoidable. She was desperately in love with her husband, her daughter was precious, but the only time she was truly happy was when she was ensconced in a work project. There were times when she couldn’t sleep, and she could avoid those thoughts no more. Had she made the wrong choice? Should she have not pushed Ron into this marriage? Should she have focused on herself and let him find someone who made him happier?

She would imagine her life as a single woman with her own flat and a social life that could take whatever path she wanted. In her dreams, she had a much better body, a flair for choosing much more interesting clothes, less problematic hair—she supposed she could work through all of these struggles with her copious free time. She would have a series of affairs, never serious, breaking them off when they ran their course. She would flirt shamelessly with Snape and perhaps even have elicit encounters with him in her office. It was this point in the reverie that she would laugh at herself and carry on with her real life.

 

 

She arrived at the Ministry that afternoon on time for her meetings, at the first, she danced the way she was supposed to for the hierarchy. She never even mentioned higher-order creatures any more. She hoped that one day she would have enough clout to forge that path, but it seemed years off. In the meantime, she wanted to please her bosses and store up as much good will as possible.

In the second she endured her colleagues in research. The witch in charge of reproductive healing, Esther Gould, was insufferable with her haughty superiority, but Hermione just stored it away to chuckle with Snape about it later. Gould had tried to poach Snape years ago when they had first begun in the department. He had acted as if he had dodged a bullet since.

She made it back to St. Mungo’s just in time for afternoon tea. Snape had study material out for trivia and was drilling their two rat teammates. Each team had to have four players, but the extras on their squad didn’t have much to do in the typical game. They had searched in vain for a quidditch expert, but had been disappointed by the one rat who had claimed to be a master of the game.

He shot her a _thank Merlin_ look as she sank down into the chair and took over the review from their hapless teammates.

Ron took Rose to the nursery at the Ministry every day at three before his shift. Hermione picked her up at five thirty and then took her home for dinner, bath, and bed. Molly was keeping her tonight; she did every third Thursday for trivia. This would also give Hermione a chance to talk to Ron undisturbed about the pregnancy that night after he finished his shift.

She had brought an outfit to change into for the pub night. It was difficult for her to feel attractive at her current weight, but she had some denims she felt were flattering and a v-neck jumper that accentuated her breasts, fuller since she became pregnant with Rose. She took her hair down from its plait and shook it out, charming it to lie smooth despite the ridges that came from wearing it back all day. She looked in the mirror with trepidation and confirmed that yes, indeed, she did look awful.

They flooed from the basement of the hospital as a team to the pub. The Aurors and Team Census were already there. Ginny was about to give birth to their second child, and Hermione felt a pang again about her not yet shared news. She saw Harry straight away, and he pulled her in for a side hug. She hadn’t seen them in a few days.

“Go easy on us, ‘Mione,” he laughed.

“Not a chance.”

The pub reeked of drink and smoke, and she had to concentrate hard not to gag. Snape ordered drinks and dinner. They had figured out how to transfigure butter beer into ginger ale during her last pregnancy, and they cast their lab anti-fume charms around the table so that the pub smells didn’t bother her so much. Once she had a fizzy drink down, the pub food was almost comforting. Snape had already transfigured her drink as she sat beside him at their table.

Round one was tricky, but between them, they dominated the field. The waitress brought a basket of chips between rounds, and doused with vinegar, the hot, salty goodness was exactly what she needed. They extended their lead in round two, and by the end of the third, they were so far ahead that the fourth was just for sport.

Snape was in a fantastic mood as they shook hands with the other team, especially Harry and the Aurors.

“Professionals ought not to be allowed,” Harry said good-naturedly.

She kissed his cheek. “Say hi to Ginny for me. Be sweet to her,” she admonished him.

“I always am,” he grumbled.

She didn’t want the smoky pub smell to follow her home, so she decided to apparate instead of using the floo.

“Should I see you home,” offered Snape, and she was touched by his gesture.

“I can make it, thank you. See you in the morning. Well-done tonight.”

“Likewise,” he said as he disappeared into the floo.

She apparated home and flooed the Burrow to check on Rose. Ron still had an hour left at work. Molly assured her that Rose had been “Nothing but an angel” and had been asleep for two hours. Hermione climbed into the shower to finally rid herself of the smell and washed her hair leisurely, putting on a rinse that helped control the frizz and shaving her legs while it set.

Feeling much better after the shower, she put on her most comfortable sleep clothes and turned on the BBC news to wait for Ron. Within moments, she could hardly keep her eyes open. She clicked off the TV because Ron hated to come home to “that din.” She put a quilt over herself, and the next thing she knew, Ron was helping her to bed.

“Hello, Ronald,” she said, half asleep.

“Hi,” he said.

Her brain was sleep addled, and she stumbled to bed trying to remember why she had been on the sofa in the first place. A wave of nausea brought her back to reality.

“I have to tell you…” she started.

“I know, I know, the rats shellacked the Aurors. Harry told me,” he actually sounded annoyed by this. She never bragged about her skill in trivia, and she felt a stab of hurt before she regained course in this conversation.

“No, no, Ronald, listen.” They had made it to their bedroom and she was sitting up in bed as he began undressing. “I’m pregnant,” she said quietly.

“What? Are you…? When?” He had stopped in mid motion of taking off his trousers and they were pooling at his feet. He was wearing roomy, white cotton boxers, and his slight paunch made him look quite adorable. That familiar love that was never far from her bubbled up, and she was suddenly quite emotional about her news.

“I found out today; I wanted to tell you in person,” she left out whole chunks of this story.

“Oh, ‘Mione, that’s wonderful!” He was beaming. He walked over and sat down, taking her into his arms. “Do you feel all right?”

“The usual pregnancy stuff.”

“Already?”

“Yeah, but it will be fine.”

“That was quick!” He sounded proud of himself.

“Yes, Ronald, you are a master of virility,” she teased him.

“I really am,” he strutted around the room, and she tossed a pillow at him. He dove in gently and rolled her over so he was spooning her. He kissed the side of her head, just above her ear.

“When will the baby be born, then?”

“November, I would think. I’ll see the midwife in a few weeks.”

“Aw, that’s fine. That’s just fine,” he sounded utterly chuffed.

She snuggled closer to him and fell back asleep.


	16. Chapter Nine: December 2004 and January 2005

**Chapter Nine**

**December 2004 and January 2005**

Hermione spent the morning of Boxing Day in a small third floor room of Grimmauld Place in front of the telly. The Potter Weasley bunch always insisted she attend both the traditional festivities of the day and Christmas Day at the Burrow.

Hermione wanted nothing else than to spend the day as she had every year of her childhood: eating Christmas sweets and watching films. Ginny had banished the telly to this extra space, and Hermione was there too, wrapped up in a blanket, watching _Meet Me in St. Louis_ for about the tenth time in her life.

The television fascinated the children—the chief reason for its location—and Hermione was joined by three-year-old James and his five and three-year-old cousins Victoire and Phillipe. The children loved the songs, were bored during the romance part, and grew alarmed when big, fat tears started rolling down Hermione’s face.

Ron had climbed the stairs to check on the group and was met by his niece and nephews.

“Auntie ‘Mione is CRYING!” said Victoire.

“Auntie ‘Mione is crying?” Ron answered in the voice he reserved for the children—this time full of mock-incredulity. “Why is she crying?”

“Watching the tell,” James said solemnly.

Judy Garland was warbling earnest wishes for merry little Christmases. Hermione remembered the last time she had seen the film. It was on Boxing Day of her third year, so she was fourteen. Her father had fallen asleep in his chair, and she and her mother were curled up on each ends of the sofa. They had sung all the songs. Her mother had a lovely, clear voice, not so unlike Ms. Garland’s. Hermione could hear her now singing… _fancy olden days of yore. Faithful friends that are dear to us, travel near to us, once more._

Hermione had saved up two months’ worth of wages and made the trip to Australia the summer after she finished university. She had consulted the Charms faculty there about possible reversals, and none of them were at all confident that she could restore her parents’ memories safely. One professor put her in contact with a Ministry specialist, whom she met. He was clearly most interested in why she had resorted to such a drastic measure, in her own psychology. It made Hermione too nervous to proceed with him.

She had broached the subject with Snape, and he referred her to Professor Flitwick, who was kind but firm that she was much more likely to do them harm than restore them safely.

They had a small dental practice in Canberra. They owned a flat in a lovely looking building. They had a corgi named Electra. Hermione tailed them over a weekend, ending on a Sunday morning when she sat down across from them at a café. She smiled at them, and they smiled back and went on perusing the menus as if she were any stranger.

She had cried then, too, and had continued crying for about a week after. Then she drank way too much the following weekend, spent a Sunday filled with self-hatred, and ran her first mile the following Monday.

She still thought about them all the time, and of course never more than on holidays. Her other family was dear and treated her as if she were a true member, but it wasn’t quite enough.

She looked up at Ron with a sheepish grin, and wiped away her tears. He held his hand out, and she took it. He pulled her up and took her into a dance hold, swaying in a silly way for the children.

_Have yourself a merry little Christmas…now…_

He spun her around at the last line and dipped her showily and then brought her up and planted a kiss on her cheek.

“Are you okay, Auntie ‘Mione?” he asked her quietly.

“Yes. I love this movie,” she said with a little sniff and a laugh.

“Mum sent me up to tell you that lunch is almost ready.” He sat back down with her on the floor.

“I should be down there helping.”

“The daughters-in-law and Ginny have it covered. You kept the big kids from getting under foot.”

“Where’s Sophie?”

“Willow didn’t want her to climb the stairs.”

Hermione said nothing. Willow never let Sophie out of her sight at Weasley family events. Hermione had the impression that the Pruitts were staid and sensible, and that Willow was still somewhat baffled by Weasley culture. Willow and Ginny weren’t terribly close, and Willow treated Fleur similarly to how she did Hermione: coldly formal when forced to interact.

“This could be addictive,” Ron said staring at the screen. “Do you watch at home?”

“At the café sometimes at tea. At the launderette—I plan my wash around the good shows.”

“Seeing anyone at the moment?” he said lightly.

“Not since Howard,” she answered selectively. “I’m set in my ways.”

“You’re twenty-five!”

“I’m an old twenty-five. We all are.”

He was quiet, leaning his body against hers. She let herself drift into fantasy. They were married. One of these babies was theirs.

Bill and Fleur were clearly still in the honeymoon stage of their marriage the way they were touching each other all the time. Harry and Ginny had a strong partnership, and while they bickered a bit, they also adored each other, laughing and bantering and finishing each other’s sentences. Ron revered Willow, who didn’t express her feelings in public. He was deferential to her, though, making sure she had everything she wanted or needed, urging her to hand off Sophie for a few minutes, never letting her cup empty.

Hermione speculated that she and Ron would be a hybrid of the three couples. They would argue, no doubt about it, they always had, but as physically comfortable as they were with each other, she thought they would be practically sexually insatiable.

Of course, having children tended to slow things down; she had gleaned enough from Ginny to know this, but even after all these years apart, she had such a spark with Ron. Perhaps they would be immune to waning interest.

“We had better head down,” she said, getting too comfortable against him. What ifs were too painful, she chided herself. Enough already.

Snape had owled her early in the week asking to meet this afternoon at two-thirty. It was the first day meeting for them ever, and she was very curious. She turned her thoughts to that and let her Ron fantasies dissipate.

Along with the four toddlers, there were two infants, Albus Potter and Agnes Weasley, Bill and Fleur’s third child. George, Percy, and Charlie were still single, or at least single enough not to subject love interests to the horde.

Lunch was pork roast sandwiches and other leftovers. Hermione ate lightly in anticipation for the rest of the afternoon. She had a generous glass of wine, though. She was floating between fantasy Ron and Snape anticipation when Ginny called out sharply.

“She’ll never learn to do for herself if you do everything for her!”

Ron and Willow were the target of the proclamation. They were sitting on either side of their beautiful daughter. Sophie had strawberry blonde curls and blue eyes under long lashes. She looked very much like both parents, colouring from Ron but easy, elegant features from Willow. She had been perfectly well behaved during the meal, in a contrast to James and the other toddlers who had required a good deal of loud, parental instruction. Hermione had noticed that Ron and Willow were quietly attentive to their daughter throughout the meal, but it hadn’t struck her as excessive.

“Bugger off, Ginerva, tend to your own,” Ron said, and Ginny responded by throwing a two-fingered salute behind James’s head at her brother, in full-view of Sophie. Willow gasped, and Hermione stifled a snort.

“That is enough!” Molly called from the head of the table. Arthur changed the subject to the current season of quidditch. Hermione returned to her thoughts.

 She insisted on washing up since she had been absent during the lunch preparation and took her familiar place beside Charlie at the sink.

“What’s up with Ginny?” he asked her.

“I’m not sure. I don’t talk to her as often as I should. I keep up with the boys all day at work, but I haven’t been around in person much. Small children are hard, I’m sure.”

“Yeah. I guess teaching wasn’t for her?”

Ginny had worked at a wizarding primary before James was born.

“Didn’t seem like it.”

“She’s young. She’ll figure it out. What are your afternoon plans on Boxing Day?” he said with a sly smile.

“This and that. Heading back to Romania soon?”

“Soon, Granger. Nice dodge.”

“Going to be bringing anyone along next time?”

“Not in the foreseeable future. Plenty of grandchildren about, thank Merlin.”

“Indeed.”

She excused herself at two o’clock, letting them speculate where she needed to be. Molly sent her home with a bundle of food.

Snape was at her door at two-thirty sharp, and he wasted no time leading her to the bed. Her earlier thoughts fresh in her mind, she took over and undressed him slowly, rather lovingly, as if he were her husband, as if he were Ron. He let her.

When he stood naked before her, she lightly pushed him on the bed onto his back and smiled flirtatiously as she removed her jumper, denims, boots, and socks. She slowly pushed her knickers down and stepped out of them. She ran a finger up his leg starting from his big toe to almost the top of his thigh, hardly touching him. She kept her eyes locked on his, but couldn’t help noticing the way his cock was quickly standing at attention. She straddled him on the bed and bent down to kiss him, gently, lovingly, carrying on the charade in her mind.

The two men were quite different physically. They were similar in height, but Snape was willowy and lank with long limbs, whilst Ron was tall from hip to shoulder with much more compact legs. They were both pale, but Snape had little body hair aside from a prominent trail from naval to pubis. Ron had a generous share of freckles and ginger fuzz from head to toe. She shut her eyes.

He reached behind her and unclasped her bra, bringing it down her arms and off to the floor, immediately taking a breast in each hand, and she felt a surge of wetness at her core. She reached down to find him fully hard, so she sat up and carefully impaled herself, keeping her eyes closed and slowly filled herself with him before she sat astride his hips for a moment as he mouthed the familiar incantation.

At its conclusion, he groaned deeply as he hit the end of her and stretched her completely as she sat up. Her fantasy was interrupted momentarily because the feel of Snape at her hilt was different from Ron. She morphed the scenario in her head slightly. Snape’s body; Ron’s being. She could work with that. She opened her eyes and started riding him slightly, teasing him exquisitely. He was running his hands all over her flanks and seemed to be enjoying the show of her slow rise and fall.

The light of late afternoon was present through the sheer curtains. It would be dusk soon in the height of the shortest days, and the street lamps would click on, but presently the sun was glowing red in her little room and turning every object amber.

She was in the best physical shape of her life. She had run a marathon in late October and was still in prime condition. Her breasts were little apples that bounced just slightly. She had no excess fat. She could see where the muscles of her strong thighs met with her hips. She had grown her hair out a bit so it was half way down her back, and she released it from its clip and let her curls tumble down as she leaned in to meet his mouth again.

He started thrusting as much as he could from his vantage, and then quickly grasped her hips and flipped them both. As soon as she was on her back, he started driving in and out of her sucking on one breast and then the other with the perfect amount of force. She almost came from that alone and reached down to send herself over the edge. He intercepted her hand and used his own.

She maintained her private thoughts until he let go of her breast with his lips and put his mouth right at her ear.

“Come on my cock, Granger,” he growled low, and there was no mistaking whose voice that was.

“I am…right…now,” she cried out and then cried even louder as the orgasm hit and radiated through her; no question who had driven her there; not her pretend husband.

“Fuck, Granger, fuck!” he gasped loudly as he spilled into her with four more thrusts against her tidal wave.

“Oh my fucking god, Snape,” she swore like a Muggle, hardly down from her high.

He chuckled low and just stayed where he was, settling every ounce of him on top of her as if he were boneless. She couldn’t remember a time he allowed himself to be this relaxed, and she did nothing to move him. She lightly ran her fingers down his back and sides and enjoyed the sense of contentment that was radiating from him.

He finally slid out of her, but wrapped his arms around her and took her with him as rolled to lie his back, snuggling her close to his side.

This was the time when one of them always—she could not remember an exception—began dressing and preparing to exit, even if it was only to proceed to the table for tea and breakfast. He made no moves to leave the bed, and Hermione settled in at his side, with her head on his chest.

Her thoughts drifted to earlier, to the film, and her parents, and Ron. To the couples around the table and their babies. And to Molly slaving away happily with Kreature looking on in disgust. If she were married, if she had a darling two-year-old girl, if she lived in a smart little townhouse in wizarding London, where would she be right now? Would they still be at Grimmauld playing games with the crew? Would they have left early so their daughter—perhaps _Rose_ after her dear Gran—could nap in her own bed. Maybe she and Ron would have also stumbled into their bed. She edited her earlier encounter replacing Snape full-on with Ron. The scene morphed from animalistic passion to one of humour and love. She and Ron would banter throughout and when they finally ratcheted up to the point of climax, they would lock eyes.

“I love you so much, Darling,” Ron would say.

“I love you!” she would cry and they would clasp hands and intertwine their fingers as they both came at that moment…

This was a step too far into schmaltz and she rolled her eyes at herself. She realized the person actually in the bed with her had become stone still with very regular breaths. She looked up at him and saw he was sleeping. She had never witnessed this before, and it made her giggle very quietly before she rolled over on her side and snuggled into her blanket for her own Boxing Day kip.

 She awoke to a completely black night but a slightly lit room. She opened one eye a crack and saw him now seated at her desk reading her work journal. He had put his trousers on and had his shirt unbuttoned. He had wrapped himself in the blanket that usually lived folded at the foot of her bed. She opened the other eye to observe him but kept still so he wouldn’t know she was watching. He turned the page and continued reading.

She let him alone for at least ten minutes as he seemed completely engrossed. Finally, her side was falling asleep and she desperately needed the loo.

“Hey,” she said quietly.

“Granger,” he looked up at her and picked up her journal. “This is astonishing.”

“What do you mean?”

“This work…how have you…how did you…obtain…access?”

“To the house elves?” she felt like she was joining his thoughts in the middle of the process and was running to catch up. She was still naked and reached for her knickers and jumper. She put on the underpants and rolled out of bed, pawing into the jumper before she joined him at her desk.

His hair was disheveled appealingly, and she smoothed it around his crown before planting a kiss to the top of his head.

“Hold that thought,” she said, and walked to the loo.

 _He’s impressed with my work_ , was singing in her head as she sat on the toilet and then washed her hands. After all her years of study and effort, it really was that simple to make her feel special. She looked in the mirror to chide herself and saw a mess of curls around a face that was clearly happy and content. _Oh well_.

“I have cartons of Molly food, and you need to help me consume it. Wine or tea?”

“Tea first.”

She pulled on some flannel bottoms and wool socks and went to the kitchen to put the kettle on.

“Granger,” he sat at the little table with her journal in hand. “Talk.”

“Access. I started as soon as I was admitted to university. I went to the student center every afternoon for tea and started talking to the elves. It wasn’t that much of a challenge. Do you remember when I started, I was at a loss of how to begin, so I just did a little each day. There is a whole carton of pork roast and gravy, would you like a sandwich?”

“Yes, that would be fine. Not too much. How do you go from ordering tea to autopsies?”

“Years of establishing relationships. You would have been astounded by my patience.”

“This is a continuation of a larger work, yes?” He held up the journal.

“I have more volumes behind you,” she pointed to her bookshelves. “Each journal is about three months’ worth of work.”

“You’ve published none of this.”

“How could…”

“For obvious reasons,” he continued his thoughts on top of hers. “The Ministry should never see this.”

“That has been my conclusion.” She poured the tea and stirred his leftovers in a little sauce pan. She split open a bun from her stash from Molly and buttered both sides.

“You shouldn’t leave this lying around,” he chided her.

“In my own room?”

“On your desk in plain view.”

“You are the only other person who has been here in a while, Snape.” The meat and gravy were hot, and she dished it out over the bread and then set the plate with knife and fork in front of him with his tea.

“I’m a Ministry employee,” he said in his special _Granger, you are an idiot_ tone.  “This is fantastic,” he practically moaned after the first bite.

“Yule log and treacle tart to come. Point taken about the journal.” _I do trust you_.

“Have you progressed from research to application?”

“No,” she sighed. “I need more data, and I need to clone myself.”

“I see,” he said, fully engaged in his meal, head down.

She wasn’t hungry, but she took pleasure watching him enjoy his food. She wondered how he had celebrated the holiday. Had his colleague Esther invited him for Christmas dinner? Had he received any presents? She’d had her annual Weasley jumper and a new quill from Professor Lewis, her department head, as her haul this year. Now that there were so many children at the Burrow, adults didn’t exchange gifts. She didn’t miss it, but she regretted just then not thinking of a small token for Snape.

She cut him a generous slice of both desserts, and refilled his cup. She put a much smaller portion on a little plate for herself and rejoined him at the table. He took a bite of tart and closed his eyes in pleasure.

They cleaned their plates, and she started tidying. Owing perhaps to guilty feelings about her Ron centered fantasies earlier, she began to wish he would crawl back in bed with her, but of course he didn’t. He put his robes back on and buttoned his boots. He kissed her lightly on the mouth and left via the alley before ten o’clock.

They spent New Year’s Eve together at his flat. At midnight, they had a naked toast and a little snog before she dressed and left. It had become her habit to run ten miles on January first, and she needed some sleep to prepare.

She owled him early the next week to ask him for dinner on Saturday. They’d had a few non-breakfast meals together over the years. One time, they had to make a quick dinner at a pub after they had practically exploded his kitchen trying to transfigure a washtub into a fryer to make chips. Most often, though, they met much later Saturday nights.

He didn’t reply in the negative to her request, so she expected him at eight, and sure enough he was there. She had picked up Chinese take-away, and commissioned Molly to bake a small chocolate layer cake covered in ganache. She set the little table with candles and had a small wrapped package by his plate.

They had never acknowledged birthdays. The only reason she knew his is that years ago, he had been featured in the Notable Birthdays box in the _Prophet_ for January ninth. She had made the connection between the one-nine of his birthday and the nineteen of her own.

“Granger,” he grumbled after opening the box to reveal black cashmere socks she’d paid more for than any article of clothing she owned besides her boots. “I suppose now I must make some fuss for you.” He was running his fingers over the socks and looked as if he might take one to his face and place it against his cheek. She wouldn’t blame him.

“Don’t worry; mine is not for months and months.”

“I know when your birthday is.”

She smiled and poured the wine.

“Thank you.”

“Of course.” She served him and then herself some food. They were both competent with chopsticks, but it made for a slow meal.

“I’ve been thinking about your work,” he said.

“Yes?”

“You have spoken about Muggle university.”

She looked up from her wine glass.

“How much study have you done there?”

“A good bit. At first I was trying to learn as much as I could about anatomy to perform autopsies competently. Lately, though, I have been focusing on psychology.”

“Muggle human psychology and house elves?” The sneer was plain.

“Self-harm, primarily.”

His chopsticks stopped momentarily and then he swallowed the food in his mouth and began again. “Self-harm,” he repeated. “Like drinking too much?” He took another bite, and she waited for him to finish his thought. “Like training for marathons?”

“Like pressing a hot iron to one’s head.”

“What do the Muggle psychologists suggest?”

“Altering the brain chemistry with medication.”

“Potions.”

“Yes, but well-tested potions that have been deemed safe in highly controlled studies with willing participants.”

“I see. And no work has been attempted with your…population, aside from your own.”

“Certainly not. And for good reason the population is not willing to try potions anyway.”

“Go on.”

“Really? Because I have wanted to discuss this with you for two years, but as you reminded me last week, you are a Ministry employee.”

He pushed his plate forward with his chopsticks laid across it and looked at her. _You have a choice._

_I trust you._

“Why don’t we just have cake for now. Perhaps I could send you home with some relevant journals.” She cleared their plates to the sink and then revealed the cake. She cut them each a slice and returned to the table. He did not look unhappy.

“Happy birthday, Snape,” she said as she laid the plate in front of him and kissed him on the mouth.


	17. Chapter Nine: December 2004 and January 2005

**Chapter Nine**

**Winter 2004 and 2005**

She was holed up on the third floor of Grimmauld Place, ostensibly to nurse tiny Hugo. She was, but really she was there so she could watch Boxing Day telly in peace.

She had found an old favorite, _Meet Me in St. Louis_ , and several of the children had found _her_ and settled in beside her. Red-headed Hugo was latched on like a little champ, drifting in and out of sleep. He averaged about sixteen hours of sleep a day and couldn’t be more different in his infancy temperament from his sister. Rose had morphed into the most perfectly behaved toddler, though, so Hermione fully expected that her son would be a holy terror once he hit a year old. Still, she was enjoying her easy baby.

Just as Judy Garland was singing out her delicious agony regarding the _boy nexxxxxt dooooooor_ , Hermione heard feet on the steps and felt instantly guilty and on edge. Sure enough, Ron seemed out of sorts to find her hidden in front of television in the attic.

“Is he asleep, then?” Ron asked her accusingly.

“In and out,” she whispered.

“The rest are downstairs finishing the lunch.”

“Do they need my help?” It’s not as if Hermione was known for her brilliance in the kitchen.

“Probably,” he said tersely.

“Do you want to take him, then?”

“Finish the show, Daddy?” Rose said quietly, in a tone Ron could never resist.

“Yes, you and Mummy and cousins can finish the show until lunch,” Ron said in the voice reserved for his beloved daughter. “I’ll call you when it’s ready,” he continued in his Hermione voice, which was tinged with the annoyance he seemed to feel continually with her. He turned and left the room without another word, and she snuggled back in with her daughter, niece and nephews.

She was somewhat surprised that the movie kept their attention, but there was lots of colour, movement, and singing, and none of the littles watched telly regularly. They found it fascinating.

Hermione remembered the last time she had seen this film she had been sitting on the sofa in Putney with her mother. She felt the familiar agonizing pang. She was certain her mother would be horrified to learn that Hermione had two children at age twenty-five; she could hear the chiding voice in her head.

 

_You planned this?_

 

Years before she had consulted Snape, who had referred her to Professor Flitwick about reversing her parents’ obliviation. The professor had told her very kindly that it was highly unlikely that the memories could be safely restored. She had decided to put off a trip to Australia until the children were in school.

Lunch was ready about the time the Smiths learned they didn’t have to move to New York but could stay in St. Louis, which didn’t really seem like good news to Hermione, but she had never been to either city.

Hugo was fast asleep, bless him, and Rose sat at the table like a big girl and didn’t fuss about the food. She was the best-behaved child present, though it was by way of being the quietest. Hermione wasn’t sure that was wonderful. The food was delicious as always, and Hermione was starving as she usually was when she was nursing.

“I can’t believe you want to go back to work!” Ginny declared across the table to Hermione. Ginny had taught primary school for a few months before she had become pregnant with James but had quit almost immediately and hadn’t missed it. Ginny had been snappish at every gathering for the past three days and seemed constantly on edge.

“Some people have fulfilling careers, Ginuuuhhhhva,” Ron said with a mouth full of mashed potato.

Ginny shot him a sly two-fingered salute behind James’s head though in full view of the other children at the table. Hermione looked away, Willow gasped, and the rest of the table snorted.

“STOP that!” Molly commanded at her two youngest children. “What will you be working on when you return, Hermione?”

“We are continuing to study dosage; there are so many variables. We’ve been focusing on treating toxin exposure in the past year or so, and we would like to move on to disease structures soon.”

“Their work has improved treatment protocol dramatically with our population,” Charlie said, and Hermione blushed.

“Missing the greasy git?” George teased her. She didn’t bother to defend Snape as she realized the wind up.

“Ooooh, don’t speak against her best mate,” Ron said.

“Not so greasy anymore,” Ginny retorted.

Molly changed the subject by clearing the table with a flick of her wand and serving two kinds of dessert. Hermione wondered what Snape was doing just then, and if he had enjoyed Christmas pudding somewhere.

Later she and Charlie washed dishes, mostly magically.

“Are you still seeing Elena?” Hermione had been to Romania several times to treat the dragons Charlie worked with. She had met his girlfriend the previous summer.

“Yeah, nothing serious, or at least not serious enough to subject her to the Weasleys.”

“What is she doing for Christmas?”

“Not really celebrated by wizards there, so nothing. I’m going back tomorrow. Thanks for taking the pressure off to procreate, by the way. Much less feedback from Mum now that the table is filled with babies.”

“No problem. Thanks for saying that about my work earlier.”

“It’s true, Hermione. You should come out and visit sometime when there is not an urgent need.”

“I would love to.” It was only a dream now; she couldn’t even consider it until Hugo was weaned, but in about a year, she would have more freedom.

“What do you think is wrong with Ginny?” he asked conversationally, but with obvious concern for his little sister.

“I think she’s not thrilled to be home with babies, but not thrilled with the prospect of work, either.”

“Everything okay between her and Harry?”

“I think so; yeah, seems to be.”

“What you and Ron have worked out is ideal.”

“Yeah?” she tried to keep her tone light.

“Both of you having careers and still time to be home with the babies.”

“It can be tough to spend so much time apart, but it’s our best option for now.”

After dishes, they gathered in the sitting room to play Whittig. Hermione was paired with Charlie, and they won easily, mostly because the rest of the partners were more focused on the children than the game. At twilight, she and Ron gathered the enormous haul of supplies a day away from home with a newborn and a three-year-old required and flooed back to Waverly. They had bought a larger house the summer before and now had plenty of space for the family of four. They worked together silently to bathe Rose, to help her into pajamas, and to tuck her in with a new book.

Ron was exhausted and went right to bed. Hugo woke up and wanted to eat, so Hermione settled on the sofa with him just as _Mr. Smith Goes to Washington_ began on the telly.

They were back at the Burrow for New Year’s Eve although they were home hours before midnight. Hermione was feeding Hugo as 2005 began, and she kissed his little head. Ron and Rose had been asleep for two hours.

She returned to work on Monday, the tenth of January. She would have been happy to be there a week earlier, but the nursery wouldn’t take an infant under eight weeks. Ron would be home with Rose and Hugo for most of the day before he went in for his shift, but there was that two-hour window that they needed childcare. She set up her pump in her office as soon as she arrived. There was a large tube in the floo through which she could send Ron pumped bottles of milk. She glanced at her calendar and then went to look for Snape in his lab.

He had his back to her, and he was hunched over a small cauldron. She had sent him a black cashmere jumper for Christmas, and she could see the top of it sitting just above his lab robe. His hair was tied back with a thin black velvet ribbon, his current preferred style.

She was sure it was due to absence and ridiculous post-natal hormones, but she was sorely tempted to walk quietly behind him and wrap her arms around his middle. She banished the thought and chided herself.

“I’m back!” she called out merrily instead.

He jumped slightly, clearly startled

“You think we couldn’t work without you?” he growled, not turning around.

She felt a blast of hurt and immediately her milk came down and started soaking her robe as tears welled in her eyes. She retreated to her office quickly and put up the little screen she had used so she could pump with privacy when Snape was in her office. She heard him on her heels.

“Granger, I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for,” she sniffled, feeling acute embarrassment. “I’m a mess, obviously. Thrilled to be back, though. You have no idea.”

“I didn’t mean anything…the truth is, I’ve been counting the days for your return. It’s just been a bad morning.”

She smiled behind the screen. The pump whirred magically. They had written whole articles with this screen between them when Rose was an infant. “The jumper looks nice,” she prompted him.

“I’ve worn it almost every day. It’s remarkably soft.”

“Thank you for…”

“Don’t mention it.”

Snape had deposited ten galleons in their Gringotts account when Hugo was born and again for Christmas.

“I probably won’t make it to the lab for weeks.”

“It will still be there when you have cleared this,” she could picture him indicating the files that littered the office, waiting for her attention. “I’ll be back to it then, Granger.”

“See you later,” she called out. She had forgiven his surliness instantly, as he had forgiven her tendency to fall to pieces over small miscues.

She spent the rest of the morning diving into files. The backlog was enormous, and she estimated it would take her the rest of the month to be back on schedule. She would have to travel every afternoon, too, which would delay her return to the lab even further she realized with an audible grumble.

She skipped tea to pump and finally saw Snape again at lunch. She slid a chocolate cupcake and a medium-sized package over to him as soon as they sat.

“Happy birthday,” she said quietly as he hated a fuss. “Molly made it; it should be safe.”

“Thank you, Granger,” he said and took a large bite of cake, ignoring the rather grey lunch on his tray. “What’s this?” He said after he had swallowed the cake.

“A re-gift, I’m ashamed to say, but I loved it.” Charlie had given her a book on the history of potions and potion masters in Eastern Europe for Christmas. She had devoured it in about eighteen hours and had kept a journal of things she wanted to discuss with Snape. She had wrapped both the book and journal for him. “I hope you don’t already have it.”

He unwrapped the gift and started flipping through the book immediately. “I don’t, but I was looking at it in the shops recently. Thank you, Granger.”

“Don’t thank me yet until you’ve read the journal. I have at least fifty hours’ worth of questions in there for you.”

“That doesn’t sound terrible,” he said, allowing her to see a tiny smile. “I assume you have images of this baby?”

“I might have taken one or two,” she answered and flicked her wand in front of her with a shot from yesterday of Hugo, awake for once, cooing on her knees.

“Is he a Weasley, then?” Snape deadpanned. Hugo’s little tuft of red hair was sticking straight up, and his blue eyes were wide open.

“I felt I owed it to Ron after Rose.” She flicked her wand again to show him a photo of Hugo and Rose with her curly, brown locks.

“Hugo? After Victor?”

“After my father.”

“Ah yes, _Granger_ ,” Snape said, using the French pronunciation of her surname. “I suppose you could get one of Potter’s lot and recreate the Golden Trio.”

“Yes, well,” she said and flicked the wand again to show a picture of James, Rose, and Bill and Fleur’s Phillipe, who looked every inch a Weasley.

“There they are, and I suppose they will all be at school at the same time?”

“Within one year of each other.”

“Poor Minerva,” he said with a gleam in his eye.

“Indeed. Well, I’m heading there right now to catch up with Hagrid; I’ll see you tomorrow, Snape,” she tidied her refuse and flicked her photo collection from view.

“Yes, Granger, tomorrow then.”


	18. Chapter Ten: May 2006, Part One

**Chapter Ten**

**May 2006, Part One**

Hermione had skipped the official Remembrance Day festivities as usual, enjoying the morning off after her breakfast shift with a long run beside the river. She joined the Weasley bunch at the Burrow in the early afternoon. The weather was beautiful; warm for mid-Spring, and Molly had put the whole spread outside on long tables.

Molly had finally left the café the year before. Her grandmother duties had become time consuming enough that she needed her mornings off. She still appararted in occasionally, though, to have tea with Hermione and Marilyn after Hermione’s shift.

All the Weasley brothers and Harry were playing quidditch as Arthur chased the grandchildren around the garden. Hermione was sitting with Ginny, Fleur, and Willow enjoying a glass of wine and realizing she was the only one partaking.

“Come on, it’s a holiday,” she cajoled them.

“None for me,” Fleur said with no shame. She held her latest baby, Esme, on her lap. The little girl had red curls and looked more a Weasley than her sisters, but still had those Veela traces that drew the eye to her.

“Really, again?” Hermione laughed. Esme is what…ten months?”

“She’ll be a year in June,” Fleur said, bouncing the child on her knee and placing a hand on her belly. “And this one will arrive in January.”

“Congratulations! Ginny? Willow?” She held out the bottle.

“None for me,” Ginny said with no expression.

“Or me,” Willow said. She never had much expression anyway.

“You, too, Willow?” Ginny gasped.

“Wait, all three of you?” Hermione tried to keep the shock out of her voice. She knew that Ginny had always planned on just two children and had loudly declared them finished after Albus was born. Willow had never discussed her reproductive plans with Hermione, of course, but Ron had told Hermione that Willow had hated pregnancy and birth and had vowed never to go through it again.

“I was on the potion; never missed a month, so I have no idea.” Ginny said, clearly on edge.

“I’m on it, too; I have my wand set,” Willow said through her teeth.

“I was not,” said Fleur with a laugh, apparently failing to read the mood of the table, or more likely, just not caring.

“Well, that’s terrifying,” Hermione said. “Could it be a bad batch? Do you both…”

“I brew my own,” said Willow. “Always have.”

“Harry brings mine home from the apothecary at the Ministry. We get a discount. You do, too,” she added to Willow.

“I know,” she replied. “I might have some…control issues.” It was the frankest Hermione had ever witnessed the other witch being, and she found it intriguing.

“Something’s going on. Harry says he knows of several unplanned pregnancies at the Ministry,” Ginny said.

“Two of my friends as well,” Willow added, not mentioning who the friends were.

Hermione wasn’t close enough to any women of childbearing age at university to know if there was an unplanned pregnancy epidemic there. She had been swamped at her lab anyway. Four presumably healthy elves had died of unknown causes in the past week, and she was meticulously performing autopsies to try to determine why.

“You had better be careful with your bloke, Hermione,” Ginny warned.

About a year ago, the group had decided that Hermione saw someone she didn’t talk about, and she had stopped denying it. She sometimes itched to blurt it out: _it’s Snape and has been for seven years now_ , but she suspected he would drop her immediately if word ever got out.

“He insists on casting a double-charm every time,” Hermione told them.

“Are you sure you’re not…”

“I had my period this week,” she said.

“Lucky,” Ginny shot back. “I wish we had used back up.”

“It’s a bit insulting, really; he knows I’m on the potion and have been forever, but I suppose it was a good idea after all.” Since all of this was directly in Snape’s field of study, she was instantly curious about what he thought; what he knew. She had planned to see him that night anyway. “I’ll dig around at work and let you know,” she said, telling a half-truth.

“I finally am happy with my body after Sophie,” Willow moaned.

“You cannot be serious,” Ginny snapped. “You gained about a pound, and that was almost four years ago. Albus ruined my tits.”

“Oh, nonsense, Ginny, love your mother body!” sang out Fleur, who had full breasts and hips and a bit of generous belly, but always looked sexy in a perfect mother earth sort of way, and whose husband couldn’t keep his hands off her.

“Enough from you,” Ginny said with mock-disgust.

Hermione looked skyward and to the boys, the men, she inwardly corrected herself, on their brooms. “Do Harry and Ron know?”

Ginny looked at her as if she were daft. “Of course—I’m surprised _you_ didn’t know. I found out last week.”

“I cast the spell Wednesday after I threw up breakfast for the third day in a row,” Willow added.

“I have been really busy…” Hermione realized she had been in the lab space every moment she wasn’t teaching working through the autopsies. She was also trying to sort out what was happening by asking as many questions as possible to the elves who worked at the university. She thought of the parchment in her desk and wondered if Harry and Ron had tried to contact her. “What do they think?”

“Over the moon,” Ginny rolled her eyes.

“Ecstatic,” Willow said with a sigh.

“I’m sorry, truly,” Hermione said softly wondering if she would be elated or horrified to find herself pregnant. She had always suspected she might be infertile anyway after Bellatrix’s curses because of the way they had changed her menstrual cycle. The ridiculous overkill of contraceptive in her life rendered it moot anyway. There were times, though, that she ached for the baby she would probably never have.

The men finished their game as Molly tried to herd the group to the food tables. Hermione made herself a small plate—the way she ate during spring and summer when she could run at least five days a week just didn’t lend itself to Molly’s delicious indulgences.

She enjoyed her meal and chatting with the group, but the news of these pregnancies were beginning to gnaw at her, and she was finding the pull of her lab difficult to resist.

The people at the Burrow had a vague awareness of the nature of her work although she was very light on details to her best friends, the Aurors. They had consulted with her on a case involving mistreatment of an elf in London about a year ago. She had been able to talk to the victim although it had been impossible to get enough information from him to charge the wizard he worked for. Still, she had been able to negotiate a transfer for him to the university where he still worked.

 “I had better be off,” she told Molly after pudding, regretful that she didn’t have time to speak to Ron and Harry about the pregnancies. She walked over to hug Ginny. “I’m sorry you are going through this,” she said quietly enough so no one else heard.

“It will be alright, I guess. Just a bit of a shock, yeah?”

“I know. I’ll floo you, I promise.”

“Yeah, yeah, get back to work,” Ginny said.

Hermione said her goodbyes and then apparated directly to the lab where to her horror she found four new bundles on the table. She washed her hands thoroughly. The other bodies had been placed in the charmed containers that would keep the temperature at a level that would discourage decomposition and be completely hidden from anyone else using the lab, which was unlikely, but Hermione was very cautious. She thought for a moment what would have happened if someone had come in and discovered this before she arrived.

Hermione grabbed her current journal and her quill. She gently pulled the cloth back from each of the faces. She didn’t recognize any of the bodies. She sighed in relief but wished she had been there when Peri had brought them in, so Hermione could have asked her questions.

She fully unwrapped the sheet encasing the first elf on the table. The elf was female and wore a small linen cloth that was typical of the elves who worked for the university. She had the same signs of self-harm that the others had, fresh and probably inflicted in the early stages of the illness when work became impossible. Hermione shuddered. Repeated exposure to the horror of their existence had not dulled her sense of outrage. She smoothed the hair between the ears lovingly before continuing her observations.

Like the other corpses, this one had a noticeably extended abdomen, and Hermione suspected that when she cut into this one, her findings would be the same, dramatically enlarged organs, especially the kidneys and liver, and since this elf was female, the ovaries and uterus. She patted the foot before she unwrapped the others to find the same conditions repeated although one body was male.

She gathered herself a moment to decide whether she should cut the new ones open or proceed with the tests on the subjects she had already dissected. Because all outward signs pointed to similar conditions, she decided to store the new bodies and begin work on the blood analysis she wanted to run on the samples from earlier corpses. She re-wrapped the new four and placed them gently in a new space, cool and ready for them.

She took the phials of blood she had drawn from the earlier bodies, and laid them side by side on the table. She chose the first phial, taken from a twenty-six-year-old female, and the second taken from a forty-one-year-old male. She had done quite a bit of blood analysis since she began working with Snape, and she began methodically breaking it down testing for compounds, and taking meticulous notes in her current journal. She was about to test for outside agents when there was a pounding on the door.

She closed the journal and walked over quickly. She didn’t remember ever hearing that sound from inside the lab before. Her colleagues stayed out, and if she was needed quickly would call her name from the other side.

She checked quickly that she had left nothing out that would point to her current project, and then opened the door to find Snape, looking as unsettled as she had seen him since that night in the shrieking shack during the battle. He was deathly pale, and his eyes were wide.

“Here you are!” he exclaimed.

“What’s the matter?

“Granger, I’ve been looking all over for you. I thought you were…” He waved one hand around, she supposed to indicate holiday gallivanting. “I flooed the Burrow and had to talk to Arthur Weasley,” he said accusingly.

“You’ve found me, Snape, now tell me what the urgency is; you’re scaring me.”

“You need to cast a pregnancy diagnostic charm.”

“I’m not pregnant. I was going…”

“How do you know?” he cried.

“I just finished my period.”

He collapsed on one of the work stools and slumped over the table.

“Is that all? Perhaps we should have some tea. I need some anyway.” She left him there, uncertain as to whether he would follow her to the staff room, but she heard his boots behind her. “Every female Weasley, well, except Molly, is pregnant, and two of them quite unexpectedly, so I was going to ask you about this.” She spoke to him over her shoulder. When they arrived in the staff-room, she used her wand to light the fire under the kettle.

“It’s happening everywhere.” His voice was hardly above a whisper. “And something is going on with the elves; I presume that is why you are here and not…” He made the gallivanting gesture again.

“I was at the Burrow earlier, but I came back. Yes, there is a growing…crisis.”

For the last year and a half, they had been working to determine why contraceptive potion had been lethal for elves and how to control ovulation in the population. They hadn’t reached any conclusions, but she had learned a tremendous amount about potions and reproductive chemistry from him.

“There are bodies at St. Mungo’s, but no one there has any idea what do to with them. I suggested someone at the university…didn’t mention your name.”

“I have a lab full, but I should probably widen my sample. Are they…were they from London?”

“I’m not sure.”

“All of my…subjects here are local. I could use one male and one female from elsewhere to try to control for…I know this sounds so callous. But they’re literally piling up here. Safely store the others for the time being if that’s possible.”

“I’m sure it is.”

“Please be as discrete as possible in the transfer. I don’t want to get shut down. Or sacked. Or both.”

 “I will. Thank you.”

She poured his tea and sat across from him. “Of course. Why the panic, Snape? Elves aren’t your department, and you should know that I wasn’t pregnant.”

“Why would I know that? Contraceptive potion failure is an epidemic…didn’t you hear me?”

“You cast a charm on both of us every time!” She threw him a baffled look.

“I haven’t fully cast them since about the third time we were together, daft woman!”

“WHAT?”

“I was just going through the motions. How could you not…”

Her mind reeled.

“What the hell, Snape? Merlin forbid you let on that you actually trust me! You are such a bastard.” She seriously thought for a moment about throwing her cup of tea on him, but it was still steaming. If only they were drinking pints.

“You’re just now coming to that conclusion?”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Now I want to cast a pregnancy diagnosis. But I know I’m not. I’m probably infertile anyway.”

“That is highly unlikely.”

“Why? My parents had all sorts of trouble and one baby for twenty years of trying. Those curses at the Malfoy’s did something to me. I’ve suspected since then that I wouldn’t be able to become pregnant.”

“Infertility is extremely rare in witches, and it is highly unlikely that Bellatrix’s curses had any lasting damage. I haven’t had any, and I dare say I was more extensively cursed.”

“Don’t look at me for pity, Snape. I’m thinking of hexing you myself.”

He ignored the threat. “You have always had regular cycles, correct?”

“They’ve been clockwork since you gave me the miracle potion.”

“Were they different before you started taking it?”

“They would fluctuate by a few days, but since they came back after the war, I’ve had one every month.”

“Then you are almost certainly not infertile.”

“Well, it’s a mystery. Are you worried about something beyond our situation?” It was the first time they’d had what could be described as a situation, Hermione realized.

“I do most of the fertility research at the Ministry. I am perplexed as to what is going on. I feel…a rising sense of panic.” He was studying his cup and she reached over and took his hand.

“I know exactly how you feel. Bodies everywhere, and I have no idea what to do to stop it.”

“What are you doing in the lab?”

“Running tests on blood to see if there are toxins, or at least something that shouldn’t be there.”

“Could you use some help?”

“I would love that, Snape. Truly.”

He downed his cup and took his and hers to the sink to rinse out.

“Let’s proceed then.”


	19. Chapter Ten: May 2006, Part One

 

**Chapter Ten**

**May 2006, Part One**

 

Hermione was leaning over a blood sample when a wave of nausea hit her, and she had to put a hand on the lab table to regain her bearings. She felt dizzy and off-kilter, and she breathed in and out before she could continue to plot the colour change of the specimen.

The bodies of two deceased house elves were in the make-shift morgue she had transfigured out of part of their lab space. It was the first time in her career that she had been so close to an elf, and now she had the frustration of not understanding what she was seeing.

The abdomens of both female bodies looked distended, but it was impossible to know what their usual state was. When she cut them down the front, the organs seemed too large, but again she had nothing with which to compare them. Snape helped her take every sample she could think of and was now going through them all meticulously trying to determine why they had died suddenly.

She breathed again, noting the dark purple colour, when she felt the tea she had consumed half an hour before making its way back up. She raced for the lavatory with her hand over her mouth, just making it in time. The milk made her whole insides shudder, and she knelt in front of the toilet until she was quite sure it was all up.

She splashed some water on her face and drank just a bit to rid herself of the awful taste in her mouth before staggering back to the lab, leaning on the walls as she walked.

Snape had shifted from blood analysis to brewing while she was gone, and that familiar smell reached her nose before she reached their station.

“Snape, NO! That’s not it.”

“If you say so.” He continued brewing without looking at her.

“It’s just a virus! I’m sure Rose or Hugo brought something home.”

“It looks nothing like a virus and exactly like…”

“Well, it’s not. I couldn’t be more careful with the potion. And I’m fairly certain one has to have sex to become pregnant.”

He glanced up at her just then and away from his work. He had a look of surprise and…hope? Was that what she saw? It’s certainly what it looked like. That Snape seemed to be genuinely happy that she wasn’t having regular sex with her husband made warmth rise in her being for a reason she couldn’t explain. And then she came immediately back to earth.

“Which happened,” she said quietly. About three weeks ago, Ron had come home drunk from a pub night and had reached for her in bed. They’d had clumsy, and from her perspective, not terribly satisfying sex. He had pulled her nightgown up and knickers down, taking her from behind as she lay on her side still partially asleep. She roused and tried to participate as much as possible, but by the time she was ready, he had come with a shudder and partially passed out behind her. Still, it certainly had been enough.

“Cast a charm,” Snape said quietly, and she did. Immediately a strong white mist issued from the tip of her wand to her abdomen. She sank down against the counter until she was sitting on the floor. Tears started falling down her face.

Snape flicked his wand at the potion and joined her on the floor as he whispered a concealment incantation to protect them from nosy rats. She slumped against him, and he put his arm around her in response. She laid her head on his shoulder. Their knees were bent in the small space.

“What am I going to do?”

“Surely it’s not that much of tragedy,” he said quietly.

“I was finished with this. I love them, Snape, you know I do, but I was so relieved to be finished with the whole baby business. I am so happy to be here...” Rose and Hugo were not difficult children, and they brought her an immense amount of joy, but this was the part of her life that made the most sense. This was where she thrived.

Ron will be thrilled, she thought. Ron loved nothing more than his children. As Harry advanced in the Department of Auror, Ron was more than happy to work his shift and spend the rest of the time with his children. He and Harry were no longer partners. Harry worked traditional hours, and Ron had made a career out of second shift which involved much more paper work than time in the field.

Their marriage had dissolved into a relationship in which they were mostly roommates and co-parents. She didn’t even bother initiating sex anymore because she could no longer endure the sting of rejection that inevitably followed. He reached for her about once every two months, and even that was dwindling to once a quarter. That his drunken fumbling had been perfectly timed last month with her cycle and apparent contraception failure summed up Hermione’s despair regarding her marriage: she could not win.

She couldn’t stop crying, and she couldn’t spill her heart to Snape. He seemed to understand the depth of her pain, though.

“I could brew you something,” he said in her ear, hardly audibly.

She gasped. Her mind had already traveled to thinking about seeking out a Muggle doctor who could help her. Abortion was not only illegal in the wizarding world, it was deeply taboo and almost never mentioned. In her years in the community, no one had ever brought it up in her presence. She had read about it in one of Ron’s work manuals that she found fascinating and read for entertainment when she was up with the babies. Snape’s other hand was resting on his knee and she gripped it.

“Don’t even say that,” she whispered urgently. “You would spend the rest of your life…”

“Who would know?” he whispered back.

This sent her into wracking sobs. She couldn’t do that to him. She couldn’t do it to Ron.  She could ruin Snape’s life and shatter Ron’s heart. But this man beside her was willing to risk his career and freedom for her.

He pulled her practically on top of him against her violent crying and she held on to him for minutes and then scooted away, horrified with her lack of decorum. He abruptly rose and started back on the potion. She collected herself on the floor and then stood up as well. He handed her a phial, and she swallowed its contents in one drink.

“What do you think is going on?” she asked him, finally composed and as resolved as steel.

He turned to her and crossed his arms over his chest. “Something.”

 

**********

Their suspicion was strengthened the next day at the Burrow where the whole family was gathering for Remembrance Day, and where the wives all looked positively green while the husbands played Quidditch with a certain swagger.

She compared notes as soon as there was a moment; Molly and Arthur were entertaining the gaggle of little children on the lawn. Ginny and Willow seemed as miserable as she was while Fleur was both radiant and baffled by her sisters-in-law.

“You don’t get the potion for the Ministry apothecary, do you Willow?” Ginny had asked. Since George had his own business there was no reason she should.

“No, I brew my own,” she said quietly. It was the first interesting thing Hermione had ever heard her say.

“I do, too,” Hermione added. It was not actually true; Snape brewed it along with the other household potions she took home each month. She looked skyward to see her husband laughing out loud as he blocked a quaffle. He had been predictably over the moon when she had shared the news the night before. Hugo had been uncharacteristically fussy all evening, so she would have been up anyway. Ron had helped her put him to bed in a great mood already anticipating the holiday. She had told him to sit down, and she poured him a small shot of fire whiskey before she told him.

“’Mione? From that night after pub?” He laughed. “Well, you can’t keep a good one down, apparently! What happened to…”

“I have no idea.”

“Better tell the git to be more careful with the brew after this! Was it a shock? I would have loved to see your face!” He downed his drink and poured another. “Three! Can you believe it?”

“No.”

“But you’re happy, then?” he asked her.

“Of course, but you’re right; it’s a shock.”

“No twins yet this generation,” he said with a smirk.

“Ronald Bilious Weas…”

“Alright, alright, just a little joke, ‘Mione, don’t get in a twist.”

“I’m exhausted; I think I’ll head up,” she said with obvious weariness.

“Aw, don’t be that way! Let’s stay up and celebrate. We have that bottle of champagne from the holidays.”

Just the thought of drinking made her want to run for the lav and lose the bit of dinner she had forced herself to eat.

“I’m already feeling poorly, and I’m absolutely knackered, Ron. I told you about the house elves, and then with the shock today...” She kissed him on the mouth. This was the time she would always say _I love you_. He usually responded with some version of _umphtoo, ‘Mione_. She had no spirit to say it tonight. “Come up soon, okay?” she said instead.

“Yes, dear,” he said, and she could tell he was disappointed in her lack of spirit.

Finding himself the next day with his brothers and best mate in the same position, though, had put him back in a great mood.

The only three people at the gathering that seemed unamused by the current state of the family were the three witches who were pregnant against their will.

“I know it’s too late, really, but Snape and I are going to figure out how this happened.”

“I’m worried about not just us,” Willow said quietly. “Think of all the unsuspecting witches without husbands and supportive families.”

“Hogwarts,” Hermione said and a wave of dread washed over her.

Ginny gasped and Willow put her head on the table.


	20. Chapter Eleven: May 2006, Part Two

 

**Chapter Eleven**

**May 2006, Part Two**

 

Hermione had started a new journal just for the research into the contraception failure and the deaths of the elves. They didn’t have enough evidence to connect the two events yet, but they were inching closer. Snape was working at St, Mungo’s all day, not saying a word about his project with Hermione. He was wary to floo to her lab from the Ministry affiliated lab, so he returned to his flat first and then to the university.

They would eat a packed dinner and tea quickly and then work until midnight.  Since the first night, May second, Remembrance Day, he had slept in her bed, waking at five A.M. and immediately apparating home to shower and dress for another work day at the hospital lab.

He grew frustrated with the bound journals and how challenging it was to collate data in them, so he ripped out the bindings and posted the separate pieces of parchment in the lab. It wasn’t ideal for her; she liked being able to take the journal with her wherever she went in case of stray inspiration, but she accommodated him because it was his potions knowledge that was advancing them.

Through blood testing, autopsies and lots of demographical data, they knew that the deceased elves had blood that tested highly acidic, that their organs were mostly necrotic, that they all lived in homes in urban areas, and that witches with unplanned pregnancies all either lived in London or had a close connection to the Ministry or schools funded by the ministry.

The pregnancy data was largely thanks to Willow and her endless networks of former Hogwarts students. Hermione barely recognized the names of people at school the same time as she was but not in her year. Snape also struggled to remember them all. Willow had been to their weddings, to dinners at their homes, to their Halloween and Christmas parties. She had sent baskets when their grandparents died.

Willow had contacted her the day after Remembrance Day. She had shown up at the university while Hermione was just finishing teaching a class. She had seen Willow through the window in the classroom door, and concluded the class as quickly as possible to find out why she was there.

“Willow?”

“I don’t know who else to talk to about this. What is happening, Hermione? Have you found out anything?”

There was genuine desperation in her eyes, and Hermione felt immediate sympathy. She pulled Willow into a little corner and away from anyone who might overhear them.

“I don’t know very much at all, but I’m working on it with someone from the Ministry who is quite alarmed as well.”

“What can I do to help?”

“Where is Sophie?” To Hermione’s knowledge, Willow was almost never without her daughter.

“Molly is keeping her today. She is willing to watch her every day I can work on this.”

“Come with me to the lab. We can talk freely there.”

She had shown Willow the very little she knew at that point.

“What we need is information about the witches who are pregnant. Until we can isolate a cause, there are just too many possibilities.”

“I know enough people to have a decent-sized sample.”

The had worked the rest of the afternoon writing a survey for Willow to conduct.

“It would be best to be as discrete as possible because we have no idea…well about anything now. I may be overly cautious, but I suspect…”

“You suspect this isn’t a coincidence?”

“I suspect it’s not an accident. The pregnancies anyway. There are some other…issues that are probably unintended consequences. I’m sorry. I wish I could lay it all on the table for you, but I know very little so far.”

“I completely understand. I will get back to you in a week with this,” Willow indicated the parchment with the questions.

“Thank you. I hope to be able to tell you more then.”

Willow had returned to the lab with two large binders a week later.

“Ron knows all these people?” Hermione had asked her incredulously as she started looking through about seventy-five surveys. Willow had obviously spent hours on the project.

“Ron finds two or three like-minded wizards at every gathering and then drinks and talks quidditch for the remainder of the time,” Willow said flatly.

“How did you become friends with them all at school?”

Willow had just looked at her for a moment and then had spoken in a wary tone. “I wouldn’t call all of them my friends, but I lived there for seven years. Why wouldn’t I know my schoolmates?”

“I don’t.”

“You and Ron and Harry and your little group…you had a different school experience from the rest of us common folk,” she said. “Listen, I have lived with Ron long enough to begin to understand what your experience was like, but it was different for the rest of us.”

“How? You all fought. You all lived through the same times we did.”

“Perhaps, but aside from odd events here and there, I was only aware of the impending problems when Cedric died, and then…we were mostly on the periphery, Hermione. It was scary and confusing, and we didn’t have all the information you did.”

Hermione could sense that a Marietta talk was right around the corner and quickly changed the subject.

“This is invaluable work, Willow,” Hermione was paging through one binder, still amazed at its scope. “So many of the London witches are pregnant, plus the ones here. And so many who had relied on the potion for years.”

“The pregnant witches don’t even present the full picture, Hermione. There are more than a handful who have very quietly researched ways to no longer be pregnant and have followed through,” she said.

“They have told you this?” Hermione realized she was whispering.

“One of my best friends—don’t ask me whom—and through her I found out about four more.”

“I am not judging, Willow, just shocked. You know, it’s still controversial in Muggle society, but it’s legal. I think our laws on the subject are archaic.”

“I wish I was as brave as those witches,” Willow whispered back.

Hermione felt hot, angry tears behind her eyes. “How are you?” she asked Willow.

“I’m here. Ron is beside himself with joy, of course.”

“Ron is not the one who has to endure the pregnancy and give birth.”

“No.”

They’d had tea, and Hermione had hugged the other witch for the first time in their relationship before Willow flooed home from the staff room.

Snape had poured over the data that night.

“We have to determine why you are not pregnant. You work for a wizarding institution. You had intercourse more frequently than average,” he smirked a bit there. “The first unplanned pregnancies were reported four months ago, so you should be....”

“Yes, well. I also have family history, an injury, and fully believed to be under contraceptive charms each time.”

“That is rubbish, Granger. You didn’t delude your ovaries into not ovulating.”

She had made appointments the week before with a healer midwife and a Muggle gynecologist, and both had declared her the picture of reproductive health.

“Maybe I run too much?” she speculated to Snape as they looked at the posted charts of dozens of witches with unplanned pregnancies against her own records.

“Regular cycle, Granger. If you were underweight it would have stopped.”

“I work too much.”

“So do the three healers here.”

“I drink too much.”

“Have you been to a wizarding pub lately?”

“No, have you?” she had a glass of wine in her hand and took a healthy swig.

“Not often, but we accounted for this here,” he pointed to a column for alcohol consumption.

“Muggle born.”

“So is Witch F—Amira Fancy,” he was flipping through the data on Witch F.  “She was a year behind you at Hogwarts and works here in the transfiguration department. How do you not know her?”

“I know the name,” she said defensively.

“Don’t you know any of the faculty or staff not in this department?”

“Why would I?”

“Surely there are holiday functions? Staff cocktail parties? University Center lunches? I’m the least sociable person in the world and I know the names of all the other rats at the hospital.”

“I grab one drink at parties that I’m told I can’t miss and then find you somewhere. I bring my own lunch. The only time I’m at the University Center is at four o’clock tea, and I only am there to talk to the elves on staff and drink one cup of tea. They shove their cakes and treats at me, but that’s poison,” she said, with what she hoped was enough self-awareness of her food quirks.

“No on-campus breakfasts or dinners?”

“Snape, you know my routine. An egg and toast or porridge at the café or with you in the middle of the night. I have either broiled chicken or fish for dinner every night with salad and steamed veg, and I take the leftovers for lunch plus an apple.”

Snape had been sitting back in his chair nursing a pint, and suddenly he was quite forward and staring at her.

“Where do you buy your food?”

“At Sainsbury’s in town. The uni delivery service is rubbish. Not enough fresh veg and fruit; too much sausage.”

“It’s in the food,” he said quietly, and then repeated much louder, “It’s in the food.”

“What is in the food?”

“Something! Something that is blocking the potion and killing the elves.”

“The food from the Ministry?”

“Yes.”

“How…how can we be sure?” Hermione was wrangling several thoughts at once.

“We need a sample to test. What’s in your staff room?”

They practically ran down the hall. There was a bowl of apples, oranges, and bananas on the counter.

“Too difficult to taint fresh fruit.” He dismissed the fruit bowl.

“Muggle fairy tale,” Hermione muttered, checking the food storage that was charmed to be cold. It was the same charm she used in her makeshift morgue, which was more than a bit creepy.

“Albert Wallis has four ramekins of Ministry macaroni cheese,” she offered.

“That will do.”

“Sorry, Bertie,” she said as she grabbed one of the dishes. “How will we know, though? How do we know what the elves put in the dish in the first place?”

“We need a control. What is macaroni cheese? Pasta, milk, cheese, salt and pepper?”

“Butter and flour. Sounds about right.”

“We need to make one ourselves and then test it against the Ministry sample.”

“Have you ever made it?”

“No, you?”

“No. I’ve seen it made at the café a thousand times.”

“Can we make it close enough?”

“I think so. We should probably purchase our own ingredients for a good control.”

“Right. To the shops, then. We can use the kitchen?”

Hermione checked the clock on the wall of the lab. It was after eight. “They’ve been gone for hours.”

Snape was already headed for the door. As soon as they were five paces from the building, she apparated them to the alley behind Sainsbury’s. No employees on a smoke break to obliviate, thank Merlin. They headed walked around the corner and into the shop.

Snape looked rather sharp in his transfigured robes. Hermione changed her jumper slightly to be more flattering so she would match him. They hadn’t been out together ever except when they went to a pub very rarely, and here they were at the shop, looking so much like a couple…like they were…at least somewhat. She pulled a trolley from the line and led him in.

They realized that they could buy a frozen entrée or even make the dish from a box, but the list of ingredients took up a whole page, so they decided they were better off keeping it as basic as possible. They found a bag of pasta with the fewest ingredients, found a fresh wedge of stilton, and a bag of flour. Hermione had butter and milk in her room. She paid for the items, and they walked quickly home.

Hermione lit the oven with her wand as Snape went upstairs for the milk and butter. Hermione found the right size saucepan and lit the cooker just as he returned to the kitchen. She put on a big pot of water and sped up the boiling process with her wand before adding the pasta.

“Equal parts butter and flour and then gradually add milk and stir under low heat until it thickens,” she thought out loud, contemplating the sauce. “Would you hand me that salt and pepper?”

While the white sauce cooked, she pulled out the cheese grater. “Have you ever done this?”

“Not by hand, but I know a charm.” He took the grater from her and unwrapped the cheese. In a moment, he had a pile of perfect looking shredded stilton.

“Well done, then!”

She tested the macaroni. “It’s a bit overcooked, but I suppose we’re not eating it.”

 “No. There is a strainer somewhere?”

“Look up.” Most of the equipment was hanging on hooks just above their heads.

Snape grabbed a strainer and drained the pasta as Hermione added most of the cheese to the thickened sauce.

“Butter that glass dish and we’re almost ready for the oven.”

Snape did as he was told. Hermione added the macaroni to the cheese sauce and popped it in the over rather triumphantly.

While the casserole baked, Snape left again for the lab where he started doing preliminary work on the Ministry sample. As soon as Hermione’s wand timer sounded, she hit a cooling charm on the glass dish and rejoined him at the university. He told her exactly how to prepare the new sample so he could begin the tests.

They worked until four-thirty A.M. and were about half way through. They hit a stasis on the works, stored it all securely, and then apparated back to Hermione’s. He staggered into her shower with her, and they let the water hit them like stunned soldiers caught in a downpour in the middle of battle. She snapped to and used the soap on herself before passing it to him and putting a dab of shampoo on her hand and then working it into her hair before passing that as well. He washed his hair quickly and then started running his hands through her curls. She turned to find him right there with a hardening cock betraying him.

She smiled and took him in her hand as she rinsed her hair, stroking him up and down, and paying special attention to his foreskin and tip. He had never allowed her to pleasure him for any length of time with her hand like this, but instinct took over, and she could tell she was doing an adequate job as he quickly came undone and spilled himself over them both before it washed away under the spray.

“Granger,” he moaned and pulled her close.

“I have a given name, you know,” she teased him.

“I know you do. It’s just as ridiculous as mine,” he said in her ear.

“I like your name, Severus,” she whispered and lost her head momentarily as she licked his bottom lip up to his top lip in one motion. She felt suddenly very silly and pecked his mouth as a bit of an apology.

He pulled her closer and gripped her as if he were afraid she would slip away. She responded by holding him against her just as tightly. They stayed that way for moments before he broke the embrace and finished up his shower slightly self-consciously. He stepped over the tub and dried quickly with a towel as he whispered a charm to cleanse his clothes. Hermione finished and joined him in the bathroom to dress for her shift at the café.

After feeling all day as if she had been hit by a lorry, Hermione devised a plan to continue. It was Thursday, and she set a goal to be finished with their analysis by the end of the weekend.  Between trips to the staff room for strong coffee and subsequent trips to the loo, she felt fairly useless. Snape arrived sharp at six looking disheveled and ten years older than he had twenty-four hours before.

“We’re going to work until eight, force ourselves to eat dinner at the pub, and be in bed by nine. Come back tomorrow, and we will work until we finish,” she issued her edict.

“Is this wise?” he said in a gravelly voice and without much fight.

“Clearly,” she replied.

They did what they could for the next two hours, split a sandwich at the pub, and were in Hermione’s bed by eight fifty-five. From the bed, they were trying to charm his clothes clean and kept stumbling over the incantation. He fell asleep mid-sentence and pulled her to him as he was drifting off. They were unconscious for the next seven and a half hours.

She woke to him caressing the inside of her thigh. She made a quick trip to the loo. The Muggle gynecologist had fitted her for a diaphragm, and she carefully followed the procedure to insert it. She left her knickers on the floor, and scampered back to bed where he rolled on top of her and entered her in about two motions. He made love to her languidly, kissing her neck and ear with his eyes closed. She ran her hands down his back and sides whimpering quietly in his ear and feeling every sensation. He slid out of her and made her come with his mouth before rising again and coming himself in about five thrusts.

He walked down to the café for breakfast close to an hour and a half into her shift, and she introduced him to Marilyn, who asked him every question that came to her mind while he ate. Hermione overheard them in patches as she waited on nearby tables. He answered each question with a carefully thought out cover that Hermione had never heard before. He was a scientist in a related field from Manchester who worked in London and had known Hermione for a few years because of a project they had been collaborating on.

They kissed lightly on the mouth in the Muggle street before she left to get ready for her day at university, and he to apparate back to London and the hospital lab. They had discussed repeatedly that he had to be vigilant not to reveal that he was at all suspicious of the Ministry or that he was working on an after-hours project in any capacity.

They resumed their work that night at six and continued until midnight. By mid-day Saturday they had isolated the compounds in the Ministry sample that were not present in the control. Snape read down the list of components and had to sit to steady himself.

“I brewed this,” he said in a voice barely above a whisper.

It was Hermione’s chief fear of the last several days, but not a shock.

“I would have been surprised if you hadn’t,” she said quietly. “What did they tell you it was?”

“Treatment to extend the fertility of aging witches. They…Esther Gould said she wanted to stave off menopause across the board by ten years. We were testing it on witches over fifty that wanted additional children, with the understanding that it would become standard care if successful.”

“Wow,” Hermione gasped. “Are people not having enough babies?”

“Not having enough, waiting longer, not entering partnerships. The Ministry has been concerned for years.”

“How much did you brew? They must have vast stores to have affected so many witches.”

“And elves,” he said.

“And elves.”

“The initial batch took me months to perfect. I then made enough for the study. We identified ten witches who wanted to participate. That batch wouldn’t be close enough to taint the entire food supply. A team of rats must have been given the formula and made sufficient quantities of it.”

“Did you test whether it could counter-act contraceptive potion?”

“NO!” he said sharply. “Do you think it would have taken me this long to identify it if I realized it had that capability?”

“Of course not. I’m sorry.”

“No,” he said and put his head in his hands. “I’ll resign today.”

“You can’t.”

He looked up at her.

“You have to help me take them down,” she said.


	21. Chapter Eleven: May 2006, Part Two

**Chapter Eleven**

**May 2006, Part Two**

 

“How much contraceptive potion would you brew for student use any given year?” Hermione was trying to collate a plan of action and was taking notes in her journal.

“Vats. I know that Poppy would usually throw a good deal out at the end of the year, but there were terms that she distributed almost all of it.”

“Mostly seventh years?” Hermione asked hopefully.

“Yes, I would say so, but to almost all of them.”

“I’m at something of a loss because I didn’t have a traditional seventh year, but I suppose most of my peers that last year were sexually active. My sister-in-law was a year ahead of me, and she said it was the same for her class. Younger than that, I’m not sure, but I was fairly oblivious.”

“As head of house I was privy to…some of that, and it always was more rampant than I would have predicted when I was a student. I suppose I was oblivious as well.”

“So we could be looking at substantial numbers of pregnancies already. I think we need to act today.”

“What is your schedule?”

“Nothing that can’t be cleared. I can tell the office at the Ministry that there’s need for both of us there. They can assume we’re assisting Hagrid.”

Snape had accompanied her a few times over the years on out of town obligations when they were testing new treatments.

“I will floo ahead to Minerva,” he said.

“We will need Madam Pomfrey and Professor Flitwick, too, don’t you think? As well as the other heads?”

“Filius for his contraceptive charm expertise?” Snape snorted.

“Well, yes.”

“Is that how you learned?”

“Of course not; I read about it in the library fourth year, but...charms.”

“I suppose. I think we need a more extensive back-up, though.”

“Condoms?”

“Yes.”

“I wouldn’t know where to begin,” she admitted.

“It’s not difficult, but I doubt Poppy has any experience with them, and it would probably be best to split the students into gendered groups for instruction.”

“So what do I need to know?” She felt her face flush crimson.

“We will need to purchase as many as we can and some other supplies, and then we’ll put together a demonstration—as clinically as possible, of course.”

He was turning rather red himself, and it made Hermione feel relieved.

“I have a discretionary fund of one hundred galleons. We can go to the Muggle shops to purchase what we need and then we can return here to plan and arrive at Hogwarts after lunch.”

“We should go to my flat instead, I think. Best not to risk returning here.”

“That’s a good idea. We should contact Professor McGonagall…Headmistress as soon as possible.”

They retreated to her office where she cleared her day citing an off-site precedence. They reached the Headmistress on the first try.

“Severus, Hermione to what do I owe…”

“Minerva, we don’t have time for pleasantries.”

Instantly he transformed into his old persona. Hermione looked at him, half expecting him to have lank, greasy hair again and a frock coat buttoned against his hands.

He tersely explained what they knew, and the Headmistress gasped.

“We might already have…”

“That is highly likely, but we want to prevent as many additional pregnancies as possible.”

“What is the Ministry saying? I have heard nothing.”

“It is likely part of some plan of theirs,” Snape said tersely.

“I can’t…”

The Headmistress looked as if she needed to lie down.

“You can’t believe it, Minerva? Really?”

“Of course I believe it, Severus, and probably much worse,” she said curtly with the full-brogue that always showed up when she was distressed. “It will be devastating, and once again, my students will be the greatest victims of their…”

“I know Minerva. That’s why Miss Granger…Mrs. Weasley and I are going to try to help. We have a plan that might be shocking, but is probably the best course.”

Professor McGonagall was aware of the basic functions of condoms and agreed that it was the simplest plan.

Hermione sent an owl to the Ministry to inform them that she and Snape would be in the field for the rest of the day, into the evening. She quickly flooed Molly, who quickly agreed to pick up the children from the nursery that afternoon and keep them overnight.

Hermione and Snape apparated into an alley outside a grocery store. Hermione hadn’t been in a Muggle shop in years, but Snape seemed rather familiar with it. They easily found the chemist section and shelves of condoms.

“Ribbed? Lubricated?” Hermione asked.

“Let’s just buy the plain, traditional ones. Poppy has lubricant in her stores, and I can brew more if necessary.

Doing the math in her head, they put as many as she could afford on her budget in the trolley.

“We will need some veg, too,” he said.

“Really?”

“Best way to demonstrate,” he said striding to the produce while she tried to keep up. The stress was fully hitting her suddenly.

“Bananas, do you think?”

“The pointy bits might be a problem. I’m thinking cucumbers,” he said just as he reached that bin.

Hermione picked one up and contemplated its size and shape. “Surely not,” she breathed.

“Oh, Granger, I’m so sorry,” he said in a wry tone.

She burst into giggles. “A fat carrot wouldn’t be…”

“No.” He said as he placed four of the vegetables in the trolley.

They paid for the items with a large stack of cash that Hermione had transfigured from the Galleons. The cashier didn’t say a word about any of it although Hermione suspected this would be dinner party fodder for her for a while. They apparated to Snape’s building, and he led the way to his flat.

It was small and immaculately clean. The furniture in his sitting room was elegant and expensive looking with dark wood and high quality upholstery. Much of it looked antique, and Hermione wondered if it was family heirloom, or from his Hogwarts life, or if his hobby was antiquing on the weekend.

“Lovely home,” she said as he led her into the small kitchen and placed the bags on his mahogany kitchen table that was only big enough for two. She couldn’t help but take in every detail of the galley kitchen in sedate steel and granite. “Do you cook?”

“On the weekends occasionally. Tea?”

“Of course.”

“Open one of the boxes and familiarize yourself with…the materials,” he suggested as he lit the fire under the kettle with his wand and retrieved two white teacups from the cupboard. He had an electrical refrigerator and gas cooker, Hermione noticed. She wondered how many Muggle guests…Muggle women specifically he entertained.

She opened one of the boxes and pulled out a condom, packaged in plastic. Gingerly, she tore the little packet and took out the rolled-up material.

“What is it made of?” She asked him.

“Latex. It’s a compound like plastic. There is a chance one or both partners could be allergic to it, so that will present its own set of problems.”

She wondered again how he was so knowledgeable about this. He hardly talked about the details of his life, but he had mentioned a few things about his childhood and adolescence in Cokeworth. She unrolled the condom over two fingers and then wondered if she should have waited to use one of the cucumbers.

“That’s right,” he said. “It just unrolls. The…penis must already be erect. That’s very important.” He brought over the tea and handed hers to her and then took another condom from the box and a cucumber. He tore the little package and rolled the condom carefully over the vegetable. It easily stretched. “When the couple is…finished, the male must withdraw carefully, remove the condom, and he should tie it off. If there is a tear or a leak, they should both see Madam Pomfrey as soon as possible.”

“One time use?”

“Yes; that’s important, too. What other questions can you think of?”

“How would they know if they are allergic?”

“Painful rash.”

“At what point in the…encounter should they put the condom on?”

“Before any kind of penetration…”

“Any kind?”

“Before the penis penetrates anything!” The former exasperated teacher was emerging and it made Hermione giggle.

“Sorry, sir,” she said and then started to giggle more.

“You are going to have to hold it together, Granger.”

“I will, I will.”

“This is really not amusing.”

“You’re right, it’s not. Just science; just science,” she willed herself to have a straight face. “You’re right, it’s extremely serious, and I am going to bungle the whole mission.”

“You won’t. Just be honest and straightforward. Do you think you’re ready?”

“I hope so. We should go ahead, I suppose.”

They bundled the boxes of condoms and their other props and took them to the floo in his sitting room.

“After you,” he said, and she doused herself with powder and whooshed to Hogwarts and the Headmistress’s office.

McGonagall was at her desk with a glaring worry line across her forehead.

“We tested the upper two classes. Four seventh years already pregnant; one sixth. We are talking to the heads of houses to ascertain which of the younger students we should test. We have gathered years fifth through seventh for you to talk to in gendered groups. I will demonstrate charms to the girls; Filius will be with you, Severus. I fully expect the Ministry or board or horde of angry parents, or all three before tonight, so I suspect we should get started immediately.”

“Who knows about this?” Snape said with rising alarm.

“No one officially, Severus, but the walls have ears or have you forgotten?”

“Still?”

“Of course, dear,” she said wearily. “The girls are in the Great Hall; the boys are in the library. We should go now. I suppose those are the…” she pointed to the shopping bags.

“Condoms, Minerva. You should probably practice saying the word.”

“Yes…”

“They should go to Poppy; she will need to dispense them each with a phial of lubricant.”

“Severus, what did we do to deserve this?”

Hermione’s old professor and mentor talked to Snape the way she did, as a trusted colleague. Hermione felt a pang of jealousy. _He is **my** work friend…_ before she banished the thought and chided herself. How ridiculous.

The headmistress dragged herself from behind her desk as if with great effort and led Hermione toward the Great Hall.

“Here’s a box for you and a cucumber,” Snape said, handing her the supplies.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

“Good luck, Granger.”

“You, too.”

She squared her shoulders and followed the Headmistress to the Great Hall. It was about a quarter full with nervous looking young women. Hermione realized she didn’t know any current students and was relieved. McGonagall took the lead and explained the situation in her usual curt way.

“We don’t know yet why the potion isn’t working, but be advised in no uncertain way that it is not. If you engage in sexual intercourse, you are very likely to become pregnant.”

The younger girls looked mortified; the older ones terrified. The Headmistress led them through instruction of a contraceptive charm that could be used on either partner and made the students practice several times walking around the room to observe their incantations, offering corrections.

“There is another way to prevent pregnancy; a way Muggles have been using with success for years. I will turn it over to Ministry official Hermione Granger…uh Weasley for that instruction.

Hermione flinched slightly to be called a Ministry official since no one from the Ministry had any idea what they were doing, but she realized Professor McGonagall had reasons for referring to Hermione as such. She took a deep breath and began by tearing a package and holding the condom so all could see.

“This is a condom. It is rolled onto an erect penis to prevent ejaculate from having contact with your body.” She sounded significantly more confident than she felt. She went through her lecture, demonstrating with the vegetable without problem.

“Madam Pomfrey will have condoms on hand, and she will issue them to you with no questions asked. You will be acting in a responsible manner by using them, and you should not feel ashamed. When she gives you the condoms, she will include a phial of lubricant. You will need to use it generously both on the condom after he has rolled it on, and on yourself.” For the first time with the students, she felt herself blushing. For some reason, she was picturing herself going through these actions, and she realized the person in her head wearing the condom wasn’t her husband.

The door to the Great Hall crashed open, and four Aurors and a supervisor burst into the room. She knew all of them well; they had all been Ron’s coworkers for years. Auror Atlee was his boss. Three of them played Whittig at her house. She had been to countless holiday office parties with them. She put the condom clad cucumber on the table and looked down.

“Stop!” Auror Atlee said, and the students looked with huge eyes between Hermione and the Headmistress and the Aurors who had just entered.

“Headmistress, please escort these students to the dormitories and then return here,” Alvin Atlee said. “Mrs. Weasley, do not move, please.”

Hermione forced herself to breathe in and out, but she was feeling light-headed. The students started filing toward the door in silence.

“May I sit?” she asked quietly. “I’m feeling rather feint.”

“I said don’t move,” Atlee said in full law enforcement mode.

As the last student exited, four more Aurors with Snape in tow entered. They had obviously restrained his hands behind his back, Hermione started to sway and grabbed on to the back of the nearest chair to steady herself. Atlee glared at her but stayed silent until Flitwick and then McGonagall returned, both looking defiant but also fearful. Hermione recalled her own school days and the looks on her old professors’ faces were instantly familiar.

“We are taking you all to the Ministry for questioning.”

She felt the panic rising again.

“Granger…Mrs. Granger-Weasley looks unwell,” Snape said sharply.

“Mrs. Weasley should have thought about the consequences before she traveled here without authorization.”

“Both Mrs. Granger-Weasley and I were authorized to be at Hogwarts today,” Snape said defiantly.

“Severus,” McGonagall began before Atlee interrupted her.

“We will not begin questioning before we arrive at the Ministry. Auror Jackson.”

Phyllis Jackson walked to her and gently placed Hermione’s hands behind her with a binding spell.

“Sorry, Hermione,” she whispered.

“Professors, I will trust you can make the journey unrestrained? It’s a professional courtesy I won’t hesitate to revoke if either of you so much as…”

“Alvin, really?” The Headmistress chided. “Of course Professor Flitwick and I will accompany you without incident. We are more than anxious to get to the bottom of all of this ourselves,” she said menacingly, and Hermione had never loved her more. The Headmistress walked toward the huge doors as if there was a rod of steel in her spine, and Professor Flitwick ambled behind her with similar dignity. Snape and Hermione were led by their restraining Aurors, but Snape also kept his head in high defiance. Hermione was mainly focusing on not vomiting on the rug.

Behind the grand stairs, there was an exposed floo Hermione had never noticed but wasn’t particularly surprised to see. Working for the Ministry had prepared her to expect anything in any building.

She stepped into the floo as Phyllis doused her with powder and she was jerked unceremoniously across the distance. She stepped out into the main Auror office. Ron’s desk was in the far corner and he was standing on the far side of the room, clearly horrified. Atlee led them through the office quickly and into interrogation rooms: McGonagall and Flitwick into one, she and Snape into another.

Phyllis immediately lifted the spell and helped Hermione into a chair.

“Would you like some water? Congratulations, by the way, on the baby. Ron just told us yesterday.”

“Yes to the water, and thank you, Auror Jackson.”

“Come on Hermione, _Phyllis_ ,” the female Auror said.

“Would you please just bring Miss Granger…Mrs. WEASLEY some water,” Snape roared.

“I’m going to have to ask you to…” Auror Holloway was stumbling over his words, clearly intimidated by his old Potions professor.

Snape sighed and rubbed his temple. “I apologize, Mr. Holloway. Miss Latham.”

“Jackson,” Hermione muttered to him.

“Auror Jackson,” Snape corrected himself.

“Of course, Professor. Would you like some water, too?”

“No, please just…”

“Yes, sir,” Phyllis said quickly and left the room.

“Are you okay?” he said to Hermione, hardly audibly.

“Fine. I’ll be fine.” Although her heart felt as though it would stop at any moment. “We knew…”

“Don’t say a word, Granger,” he warned in a serious but kind tone.

The door opened shortly, but not with Phyllis and water but Ron still looking apoplectic. He sat across the table from Hermione. She kept Snape’s advice in mind and kept her mouth shut though she did try to convey contrition in her eyes as she looked at him.

“What were you thinking?” he said through his teeth.

“We discovered a problem; we attempted to solve it,” Snape answered flatly.

“Excuse me, Professor, I was asking my wife.”

“As she was a victim of this…”

Ron stood abruptly and turned on Snape. “She is _not_ a victim. I don’t know what she…”

“Merlin’s bloody beard! Do you even talk to her?” Snape looked as if he was about to come across the table at Ron.

“Snape,” Hermione said softly.

Auror Atlee entered again with a sheepish looking Phyllis.

“We will resume tomorrow morning at 10:00,” he said curtly.

“We’re free to go?” Hermione asked.

“For tonight. Weasley, come into my office,” Atlee barked and Hermione’s heart sank again.

“I should see my wife home, sir,” Ron said haltingly.

“Mr. Snape can do so, can’t you?” Atlee glared at Snape.

“Of course.”

“Fine. Weasley, my office.”

Ron shot her an angry look as he followed his boss into the office and closed the door.

Hermione felt tears falling down her cheeks as Snape led her back to the floo.

“Are you steady enough?”

“Yes,” she said softly.

“I’ll be right behind you.”

She stepped in and whooshed home to her kitchen. She lit the kettle with her wand before she slumped in a chair and put her head in her hand on the table. Snape swept into the kitchen just then.

“I put on tea.”

“Thanks.” He sat across from her and pulled a handkerchief and offered it.

 _How many hundreds of times would this scene be repeated?_ She asked herself silently. This was her life: sad sack endlessly comforted by long-suffering co-worker. She rose in disgust and began readying the tea.

“I can do that,” he said.

“I can make us tea, Snape!”

“I realize…”

“I’m not helpless no matter how much it seems…”

“I have never found you helpless. I don’t understand why you let him speak to you…”

“Let him?” she roared. “Do you think I had a choice?”

“Not just then, Granger, Every time…”

“You aren’t here all the time, Snape.”

“I know.”

She was pouring the water, eyes so clouded with tears she was afraid she would burn herself. She felt her shoulders start to wrack. It was the last scene she wanted him to witness. She felt his presence behind her, and she was unable to restrain herself from turning and falling into his chest. He immediately put his arms around her and held her so tightly. She hadn’t been held like that by a man since…her memory strained…since her father, that last time when she was helping them settle into the flat in Australia, before she had obliviated them. Her father had held her and begged her to stay, to start a new life with them.

Her father hadn’t caressed her head, though, as this man was. He hadn’t gently separated her curls with his fingers.

“Hermione.” Her father hadn’t whispered her name like that.

She raised her head to look at Snape. She felt comforted and confused and content and relieved and loved all at once.

“Oh, sod it,” he whispered and covered her mouth with his.


	22. Chapter Twelve: May 2006, Part Three

**Chapter Twelve**

**May 2006, Part Three**

 

They had spent the day in the lab combing through notes and preparing a report long enough to include all the necessary history and data but not too long to be overwhelming. She had pulled all the journals she felt had the most illuminating research, and she had referenced them using a number system. At seven that evening, they had bundled everything in a box for her to take to Professor Lewis, the head of her department, the next morning.

She had made an appointment for eight and warned Professor Lewis that it would take two hours or so. She had prepared an introductory statement, and then planned to have him take the lead—either he would pour through the data himself or have her take him through it.

Snape had duplicated many documents at his lab that day. He was looking for anything that showed what he had thought he was working on. He had brought with him his lab reports and trial results. They suspected that when this became public, his work product would be destroyed and new documents would be faked. She would take the copies with her in the morning so Professor Lewis could read them before anyone in the Ministry knew what was going on. It was Snape’s best chance to avoid prison although he suspected the odds would still not be in his favour.

At midnight, they fell into bed, fully clothed. She wasn’t sure if she could shut her mind down enough to sleep, but she lay there silently, holding his hand, and he lay there with his eyes open, too. The next thing she knew, her wand was shaking at 4:30.

“For Merlin’s sake!” he grumbled and then turned over. “Tell those people to get their own tea!”

“Can’t. I’ll be back up at 7:30 to get ready for the meeting—you’ll be up and gone?”

“Yes. I’ll stop in for coffee before I go.”

It was most likely his last day of work. If all went as planned today, he would resign first thing tomorrow morning.

She grabbed her café clothes and kissed him on the mouth before she ran to the shower.

He emerged about an hour and a half later looking ready for work.

“Egg and toast? You should have something on your stomach.”

“That sounds fine.”

“Are you sure coffee and not tea?”

“Tea, I think.”

She put the order in and brought it to him as soon as it hit the ledge. The breakfast cook was no Molly, but he could fry an egg. She gave Snape a jar of blackberry jam and squeezed his shoulder as she flew off to tend to the other tables. He found her after he paid his bill, and she grasped him by both forearms.

“Good luck today,” she said looking in his dark eyes and maybe swooning, just a bit.

“Good luck to you, Granger. You know what to do,” he said reassuringly.

She kissed him again lightly on the mouth and squeezed his arms before she let him go.

She was racing up the stairs at seven-thirty to wash off the smell of grease and coffee before she put on her most professional work outfit and shrank the box of evidence to fit in her bag.

She arrived at the department at seven-fifty-eight, flushed and out of breath. Professor Lewis’s door was open, and he was already at his desk with a cup of tea and an intrigued expression. He was a small, trim man with a scant strip of white hair that ran from behind one ear to the other. He had a finely groomed white beard and kind blue eyes behind half-glasses. He wore a standard, black teaching robe and well-polished shoes.

“Come on in, Miss Granger. I’ve cleared my morning. I must say I am happy to finally hear about what you’ve been doing in the lab.”

Caught. She stammered out an incoherent syllable.

“I was confident you would fill me in eventually. Let’s get started then,” he said with kind and encouraging eyes.

She took the tiny box and her wand out of her bag and made it full-sized again.

“You’ve been working on this since your time as a student?”

What didn’t he know?

“Yes. I suppose I should have come to you sooner.”

“I would have liked to have you as a faculty member.”

“Well, after this, you might be relieved that didn’t happen. I should start at the beginning.”

“Please.”

She began with her initial contact with the elves at the university center when she was a student. It took them two hours to make it through her studies before the deaths and the pregnancy crisis. Throughout, Professor Lewis listen and asked many questions, never chiding her for not consulting with the department. At ten he removed his glasses and started rubbing his head.

“I could use some tea, Miss Granger. How about you?”

“Yes. Let me get some and…”

“I have a set up here,” he said and moved out from behind his desk to a little table in the corner. A flick of his wand revealed a kettle, cups, and everything else they would need. He poured water from a little pitcher and then turned back to her as it boiled.

“Why didn’t you accept the faculty position? You could have done this all so much more easily and I would have been honored to collaborate with you.”

“I was afraid they would be harmed. I felt so responsible…”

“Tell me why you are coming to me now,” he prompted. He poured boiling water into a ceramic pot, and then turned around to face her again with his arms folded, staying by the little table while the tea brewed.

“Are you aware of the rash of unplanned pregnancies?”

“Yes, Miss Granger.”

“About the same time as witches were turning up pregnant despite contraception, elves started dying suddenly.”

He didn’t react outwardly. He poured the tea into two cups. “Milk? Sugar?”

“Just a splash of milk,” she said.

He added the milk and handed her the cup. She took a drink and sighed audibly. He crossed the room with his own cup and sat again.

“Your contact,” he said, “Peri…she told you of the deaths?”

“She told me and brought me several bodies for study.”

“And these bodies are now?”

“Stored in the lab.”

“I see. May I have a look?”

She led the way to the lab carrying her box. She and Snape had left it in pristine condition in case he wanted to inspect it during the meeting. She led him through the door and started opening the containers where the wrapped corpses were. She left them in place and started bringing out the phials that contained the blood work.

“You’ve done all of this yourself? Since…”

“I received the first body in late April, but no, I haven’t done it all myself. Before we get to that, though, let me show you what we have found. About a week into my work with the deaths of the elves, I was visiting friends and found out two of them were pregnant despite using the contraceptive potion. I have another friend who is a researcher at St. Mungo’s. His work is in potions related to female reproduction. He was already quite alarmed, and we started working here together on analyzing blood taken from the bodies.”

“You had already connected the two events?”

“No, but we strongly suspected they were, given the reproductive history of the elves.” She took out the relevant journal and showed him. “In the meantime, one of my pregnant friends apparently knows…everyone, and she started collecting demographical data on all the pregnant witches she could find.” Hermione brought out Willow’s binders and opened one for him. He started pouring through it.

“Using this data, my friend and I,” She was afraid she was going to lose him soon, but she dug in. “My researcher friend,” she took a breath, “We developed a hypothesis that something in the food was both interfering with the contraceptive potion and killing the elves.”

“I suppose this was not a stab in the dark?”

“No, we were trying to determine why I wasn’t pregnant. I don’t eat Ministry food often.”

“I see. How did you test your hypothesis?”

“We analyzed a food sample made in a Ministry kitchen against a control. We found traces of a potion that my friend recognized.”

“What was the potion?”

“It was one to stave off menopause for witches who wanted to extend their fertility.”

“And your friend recognized it because…?” he prompted her again.

“Because he had developed it. He knew enough about it to realize that it could have the potential to block the effects of contraceptive potion.”

“So it is your theory that the Ministry did this on purpose? To what end?”

“To boost a declining birthrate. We’ve discussed this extensively. We think the plan was to cause the failure for a short time, just enough time for witches to have one additional child but to stop the program before it was detected.”

“Your friend had no idea about this plan.”

“No,” she sighed. “He has collected some of his work product that shows this. He will probably resign tomorrow.”

 “And you believe him completely?

“I trust him implicitly.”

“Can you tell me who he is?”

“Severus Snape.”

“Merlin’s beard,” the wizard said in disbelief. “Severus Snape? How on…why were you working with Snape?”

“I’ve known him, of course going back to my student days at Hogwarts, but we’ve been friends for seven years.”

Professor Lewis sighed. “I understand that you trust Snape, but there have been questions about him going back years. Probably since before you were born…”

“You have to know that he was exonerated! He worked for the Order of the Phoenix the same time I did. Dumbledore…”

“Miss Granger,” Leonard Lewis interrupted her gently. “This scope of this work speaks well for you and for him. But…what you are alleging here is a conspiracy on the scale of…”

“That’s why we need you, Professor. They must be stopped, but no one will believe me, and the Ministry will try to make Snape a scapegoat.”

“What do you suggest?”

“First, will you go over what we’ve done in the last week and try to find mistakes or bad conclusions. Then, I need your advice about what we should do about it.”

“Let’s go back to my office, and I will look at of all this You should stay in case I have questions.”

She lugged the box back to his office again. He asked his assistant to clear his schedule for the rest of the day.

By five o’clock they were both exhausted.

“Miss Granger,” he said quietly. “This is sound. And devastating. I suspect it will bring down the current government.”

“It should, but how can we get the story out? The _Prophet_ is a joke. They will pin the whole thing on Snape.”

“We will put the backing of the department behind your work. I will speak to the university president immediately. She is reasonable and no fan of the current government. If she backs us, it will make a difference. You are right about the _Prophet_ , but we can use the university press.”

“That will hardly go beyond this community, though. Sir…one of my friends publishes the _Quibbler_ …”

“Oh dear,” he said.

“I know, I know, but they have a decent sized readership, and Luna Lovegood is a good writer and very intelligent. It would certainly get us further than…”

“Yes. We’ll call for a press conference for ten tomorrow morning. Mr. Snape should be there. He should not resign; let them fire him after the story comes out because it will force them to show their hand. He should find a solicitor. I’m offering you a place on the faculty right now.”

“Is that for my protection?”

“No, that’s because I want you on the faculty. Your work on this is first rate, Miss Granger.”

“Thank you, sir, but how can I be assured that the elves will be protected?”

“You must decide if you trust me, Miss Granger. You know my work. Have you known me to mistreat my subjects? Would you still be associated with the department if I did?”

“No. Thank you, sir. I would like to accept the position.”

“Good. Will you contact the _Quibbler_ and let them know about the press conference in the morning?”

“Yes.”

“And you and Mr. Snape will be here to make statements?”

“We’ll be here.”

“Then I have work to do, Miss Granger. I will see you in the morning.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Thank you for bringing this to me, Miss Granger.”

She practically raced to the staff room to floo Luna.

“Hermione?” Luna still looked and dressed as if she were seventeen.

“What are you doing right now?” Hermine opened the conversation straight to the point.

“Well, I’ve been working on a story on the negative energy of tweezles. Did you know that half of all illnesses…”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

Hermione checked the door to make sure no one was in earshot.

“Luna, I have a story for you. It could bring down the government.”

“I’m coming through.”

Luna was there in an instant in the staff room covered in purple sparkly floo powder. Hermione moved to stabilize her and ended up falling into her arms and having to stop herself from sobbing.

“Hermione, are you alright?” Luna’s little voice was like a balm.

“Oh, Luna. I’m so glad you’re here. Come home with me so we will be there when…I have so much I must tell you. Can you stay for the rest of the night? Will your father worry?”

“Father’s in South America. It’s just me at the moment.”

“Just you for the whole paper?”

“It’s only a weekly, Hermione. Is this about the pregnancies?”

“That and so much more.” Hermione shrunk her box and packed her bag. “Let’s go to my room. My…partner in all of this will be coming back soon, and you’re going to want to talk to him.”

“Your work partner?”

“Yes. It’s Professor Snape, Luna. We’re both in this over our heads.”

Luna did not act as if she were shocked to hear Snape’s name, and Hermione could have embraced her again just for that.

She gave Luna the short version on the way back. Snape was sitting on her top step when they arrived at Hermione’s room.

“Miss Lovegood?” he sounded thrown off.

“Hello, Professor,” she said in her dreamy tone.

“Luna is here as a writer for The Quibbler. There is a press conference tomorrow,” she said and tried to convey with her tone that this was just the beginning.

“How was the meeting?” he asked her as they entered her room.

“It was eight hours. Professor Lewis is hosting the press conference.”

“So he’s behind us?” there was relief in his voice.

“He is. You and I are both supposed to be there. He doesn’t think you should resign. What was it like at work today? How are you…holding up?”

He snorted, belying his former tone. “I am fine, Granger.”

“Of course. I was just…I just thought about you often. It must be so strange…”

“I am used to being on guard. It’s certainly less taxing and hostile than…my previous existence was.”

“It was just supposed to be different now.”

He snorted again.

“I know, I know,” she said.

The room was small for three people, and Hermione started laying out the contents of the boxes on her bad, which was the largest flat surface. She realized that Snape had a whole stack of neatly folded clothes at the foot of her bed and an extra pair of boots under it. She looked across the room at him, and he folded his arms as if to say _it’s the least of our worries._

“Shall I get takeaway?” he said.

“Yes, thank you,” Hermione said. Snape swept out of the room and down the steps again.

 “Have you tested yourself for pregnancy?” Hermione asked Luna as she made tea for them.

“I’m single currently. I gather you’re not.”

“Pregnant or single?” Hermione laughed.

“Both. Either.”

“I’m not pregnant,” she said as she put a steaming cup in front of Luna. “As for the other, I’m neither single nor attached, I guess. At least in any formal way,” she amended. She had felt rather attached lately.

“But informally for a while?”

“Yes. For a long while.”

“Everyone suspected you had someone you weren’t talking about.”

“I suppose you can guess why, but Luna…I’m not ashamed. He’s private, though, and it has been…casual, I would say, at least until…I’m not even sure.”

“It’s okay; you don’t have to explain. When this gets out, though, people will wonder about your association since school.”

“Yes, I’m sure. It will probably start tomorrow.”

“Will the _Prophet_ be there?”

“Yes.”

“They will try to shut all of it down immediately. Is Professor Snape worried? He could be arrested.”

“Yes, he knows. He’s prepared for it.”

“Harry and Ron could help. Do they know?”

“Not yet. It would put them in too awkward a position to know before the press conference.”

“Right,” Luna said. She was starting to look through the work on Hermione’s bed. She started paging through one of the demographics binders. “Woooooow, Hermione,” she said breathlessly.

“Willow compiled that,” she replied. “She is something.”

Snape arrived with the food while Luna was still pouring over the documents.

They ate their dinner, and he patiently answered all of Luna’s questions. Hermione scrubbed down the already clean kitchen space to relieve some tension and realized she was completely exhausted from the day and recent lack of sleep.

Luna was preparing to leave for home. Hermione walked her to the alley and gave her a quick hug before she apparated away. Snape had sat in the easy chair after dinner as they continued to talk to Luna, but he was now dozing. He looked so peaceful she hated to disturb him, but she didn’t think he would rest as well in the chair. She gently brushed a lock of black hair tinged with silver from his forehead, and he woke to her touch.

“Let’s go to bed,” she said quietly and offered her hand, which he took without comment and let her help him to his feet. They silently stripped off their clothes down to their underwear. Hermione crawled into her bed, and Snape followed. He automatically opened his arm and she rolled into him. He secured it around her, and she started crying quietly.

“Awfully maudlin, Granger,” he said without a scathing tone.

“I know,” she sighed deeply. “I’m just worried about…everything. You.”

“I will be fine.”

“They will go after you. They will try to pin the whole thing…”

“I’m aware. I have lab records for the last three years. They can try…they might succeed, but I’ve faced worse.” He was rubbing his thumb comfortingly on her upper arm where he held her.

“You could run. You could go anywhere away from here. I would miss you,” she choked out a little sob, “terribly, but better that than…”

“I’m not going to run, Hermione.”

Hearing him say her name made her cry harder, and he strengthened his grip around her.

“Shhhh, woman, stop that. I won’t go to prison without a fight. They will sack me, but that will free me from that basement and the rats. I would rather do anything else.”

 “We have to connect the tainted food to the deaths, and I need your help. Professor Lewis offered me that faculty position after seeing our work. I’m going to take it and start a full-time program of research and clinical services for the elves. We owe them.”

“That sounds very ambitious…”

“I need your help in the lab.”

“They won’t hire me.”

“If they would, would you work with me?”

“I don’t have a better offer,” he said wryly. He started drying her face with his hands, and then they were kissing, and then he was rolling her on top of him, and her knickers disappeared.

“Should I go…” she started to ask, but he reached for his wand and went through the whole contraceptive charm slowly, moving his wand slightly above her belly, and then finishing with a kiss on her hips. She grasped his wand and repeated the charm, this time with the male incantation and then kissed him just below his navel.

 He grasped her and turned with her in his arms so that he was hovering above her on his elbows. He looked down at her and kissed her on the mouth. She opened her legs and gripped his hips as he entered her.

They were silent as they moved together. At some point her breath became labored, and he recognized her signals, reached down and had hardly touched her clitoris before she came. She had been running her hands up and down his back, and she brought him in closer to her as she shuddered around him. He staved off his own orgasm for a few minutes languidly moving in her before he finally sped up and collapsed on top of her.

They fell asleep without speaking, and she woke to her shaking wand what seemed moments later. She was closest to the wall, so she had to climb over him to get out of bed.

“Do you have to go in?” he mumbled, not really awake.

“Yes,” she whispered and pecked him on the mouth. “Go back to sleep.”

He rolled over, trying to comply.

She felt responsible for him and was hit with a wave of apprehension. She boxed up her materials again and charmed his clothes clean and pressed. She showered quickly and then threw on her café work clothes and wound her hair up before heading down.

Work was a blur as she went from table to table, her mind completely focused on the day ahead. She probably made mistakes, but she had been serving this shift so long, she could do it practically by rote. Marilyn could tell something was up, though, and pushed her upstairs thirty minutes early.

He was showered, dressed and seated at her kitchen table with a cup of tea.

She washed the café smells away and then dressed in a black skirt and jumper. She twisted her hair behind her head and tried to look as professional as possible for the press conference.

She sat down across from him with her own cup of tea and a plate of toast for both of them. Snape was writing a terse note to work stating he wouldn’t be in that day but offering no reason or excuse.

“The owlery is not far?” he asked.

“On the way.”

She buttered a piece of toast for him and then added jam and pushed it across.

“Eat something.”

“Yes, madam.”

She ate her own toast with shaking hands. Her stomach was not interested in the slightest, but she had no idea how this day would go or when they would have to opportunity to eat next.

 

Two hours later they were seated in the front of the largest conference room at the university. They were in the middle of a long table beside the entire Magical Creatures faculty, as well as the head of the Potions department and the president of the university. _Leonard Lewis is very, very good_ , Hermione thought as she took in the scene. Throughout the room there were large posters of the critical evidence. The audience was rather larger than Hermione had anticipated. There were many students and faculty members in the crowd. At the front was Luna and two journalists from the _Prophet_.

Professor Lewis had made the opening statement and had expertly and concisely narrated the story. He had provided the journalists with binders filled with evidence in chronological order. He then turned over the floor to questions from them.

The writers from the Prophet were trying to catch up on the story, but Luna was ready with questions for Hermione.

“When did you suspect the deaths of the elves and the pregnancy epidemic were linked?” she asked in a bolder voice than Hermione usually associated with her friend.

It was the perfect question for Hermione to reiterate the important evidence against the Ministry. She gave a much more detailed account of their experiment with the macaroni cheese.

“Walter Blue, _Daily Prophet_ ,” one of the reporters was ready to pounce. “Mr. Snape, am I correct that you brewed the potion that allegedly killed the elves and resulted in the pregnancies?”

“Yes,” Snape said in a withering tone.

Hermione willed him to offer a defense, but was not surprised by his answer. She flipped through her binder to find a specific document.

“Mr. Snape, parchment 23, section E makes it clear that you brewed a potion that was designed to extend fertility. Did you have any idea what the potion was actually used for?” she asked him.

“No.”

“ _You_ provided…uh,” Blue was flipping through his packet, “this document, uh…32 E, though, correct? What is the proof of its authenticity?”

“It’s original work product,” Snape answered with no emotion. His strategy was obviously not to give them any information they could use against him later, but she wished he would be more aggressive.

“But your proof?”

“What kind of proof do you think he could provide, Mr. Blue?” Professor Lewis stepped in. “It’s his work product. The public must decide how credible all the evidence is.”

“I would imagine the Department of Auror will have a say in that,” Mr. Blue said in a haughty tone.

“Oh, I have no doubt in that,” Professor Lewis said calmly.

“Meredith Parker, also _Daily Prophet._ I would like to return to the food. How can the accuracy of the experiment be verified? Is it not irresponsible to set off a panic about a dangerous food supply based on one experiment conducted by Mr. Snape, who could be trying to save himself and throw the authorities away from his own culpability?”

“I repeated the experiment myself last night,” Professor Lewis said. “Look on parchment 56 for my results. They are identical to Miss Granger’s and Mr. Snape’s.”

“Pardon me, sir, but you are Miss Granger’s employer, and it was your lab that she was using. Are you not trying to cover yourself as well?”

“No, Ms. Parker.”

“Professor Lewis,” Luna said, “What do you recommend the public do in light of this vast collection of evidence?”

“I would advise the public to avoid any food item from a Ministry source, and I would advise any witch taking contraceptive potion to use a back-up method until we can be sure that the food is untainted again.”

As those words rang through the hall, there was a commotion from the back of the room. A group of witches and wizards were streaking down the aisle toward the table at front.

“Stop!” A wizard in a very familiar robe and Auror’s badge barked. “Stop at once!”

“Yes?” Professor Lewis said pleasantly.

“I have orders to take Severus Snape and Hermione Granger in for questioning.”

Hermione was surrounded by three Aurors, none of whom she recognized. She looked over to see Snape being pulled from his seat. His hands were forcibly secured behind his back. Hers were not.

“Let’s go,” said the Auror in charge. He was a middle-aged man who matched the description perfectly of Harry and Ron’s boss, Auror Atlee.

Snape was led out first with an Auror at either side. One of the Aurors took Hermione’s arm and started to follow. Hermione made the instant decision that resisting this would not be to her benefit. She sent out a quick plea to the universe that Harry or Ron or both was on duty that day.

“I’m right behind you, Miss Granger,” she heard Professor Lewis say just before she was doused with floo powder and herded in.


	23. Chapter Twelve: May 2006, Part Three

**Chapter Twelve**

**May 2006, Part Three**

She kissed him back without another thought. She would think later. She would think about how likely it had been that Ron would walk in and find them. She would think that she hadn’t showered in about eighteen hours. She would think about the completely unsexy foundation garment her miserable, pregnant self was wearing under her skirt. She would think that she had lost her head and committed flagrant adultery in her kitchen. But just then, her only thought was to keep kissing him and not to stop there.

She wrapped her arms around him wantonly and met his tongue with hers. She ran her hands wherever she wanted them to go: through his hair, on the sides of his face, down his back, over his arse. He groaned into her mouth and started pulling up the side of her robe, gathering it in his hand.

It was a warm May, and she was not wearing tights, just the tight stretchy shorts that pulled in her belly and kept her thighs from rubbing together. He had brought her skirt up to the garment’s edge, and Hermione realized they had already reached the crossroads. She took her outer robe from her shoulders and then pulled down her shorts and knickers under her skirt and kicked them across the kitchen.

He didn’t need a further hint. He grasped her tightly around the hips and lifted her slightly on to the counter top, hitching up her skirt to pool around her waist in the process. She wrapped her legs around him, and he pulled her jumper up and removed it. He moved her hair aside to kiss her neck and palmed the lace cups of her bra. Her breasts were so tender because of the pregnancy, but the pain was exquisite here. She moaned as she kissed him and brought him closer to her with her leg. She felt his hard cock through his trousers. She reached for his placket and started unbuttoning.

“Hermione, are you sure?” He whispered.

She practically swooned at the sound of her own name. “Yes,” she breathed into his ear.

He removed her hand from the front of his trousers and unbuttoned it himself. She looked down as he was freeing his cock. She tried to grasp it, and he deflected her hand again. He pulled up her skirt, and put his hands at her center. She threw her head back and gasped at the contact. He had a finger partially inside her, and she could feel herself dripping on to him.

“Please, right now!” she insisted.

 Seemingly satisfied with her consent, he plunged into her. It was the most erotic act she had ever experienced, and she gasped and closed the space between them. He filled her completely. He fit perfectly. She grasped both sides of his face and kissed him, conveying gratitude and about a hundred other thoughts.

“Yes!” she said again after the kiss, and he started moving. She reached behind herself awkwardly and unclasped her bra at the same time using wandless magic on his robe, which fell back off him. There were too many buttons on his shirt, and she abandoned that thought and pressed her bare chest against the oxford cloth. He took a breast in his hand and whispered in her ear.

“Beautiful, so beautiful.”

She realized she was on the edge of orgasm and reached her hand down to touch her clitoris. Years of taking care of her own needs made her an expert at exactly what she liked. It would take a feathery touch to set her off. He once again intercepted her hand, though, and clamped it to the counter. She tried again, and again he removed it.

“Snape, please!”

“Say my name,” he gasped.

“Severus, please,” she repeated and just uttering the word almost sent her over without the aid of extra stimulation. He thrust hard three times; his own reaction, she guessed. Then he slowed and quite deliberately with much precision placed his right middle finger in her mouth as his eyes bore into hers. She sucked it, running her tongue all over it. He shuddered and thrust again before he removed the finger from her mouth and placed it directly on her clitoris. That was it.

She bolted forward on the counter so that his cock filled her all the way in and clamped down on him with her cunt tightly around his cock and her hands around his back and came with a loud groan.

“Mercy, Granger,” he gasped, “Hermione,” and she felt him come inside her, burying his face into her neck.

She gently moved his head and kissed him again, allowing no space between them. She kissed his mouth and his cheek and his neck and then he caught her again and they kissed slowly with their tongues lolling together. There was silence, but it wasn’t awkward, and she almost hoped Ron would walk in just then. It would save her an awful conversation that she was now determined to have. For Snape, this might be just a fuck in his friend’s kitchen, but for her, it had been the final moment of the great effort of her life. She couldn’t make Ron love her, and now she couldn’t be less bothered by that.

“Thank you,” she whispered, and gently moved him aside so she could hop off the counter and find her knickers.

He refastened his placket and turned away from her.

“I’m sorry, Granger,” he said.

“Please, Snape, don’t be.” He had his back to her, and she pressed against him. “I can’t even express…”

“I should leave. Your husband…”

“I don’t really care,” she said and just hearing the words aloud were empowering.

“Nonsense, Granger.” He put his robe back on carefully, and then took her face in his hands and kissed her mouth softly. “I will see you in the morning.”

“Perhaps they will allow us an adjoining cell.”

He snorted. “I don’t suspect it will be that serious. We might apply for the dole together, though.”

“I’m up for a career change, anyway. I may just hang up my veterinarian’s robe, assuming someone will hire such a corrupter of children.”

“I think we are qualified to work in family planning in any event.”

She laughed and rose on her tiptoes to kiss him on the mouth.

“See you in the morning.”

“Try to sleep, Granger.”

“You, too.”

He left the house to apparate rather than to floo. His flat wasn’t connected to hers, and she supposed it would seem like too much to add the destination after what had happened. She dumped the cold tea and made a new pot. She had no idea what to expect of Ron, but she resolved that she would not put up with his chastisement this time.

She drank the whole pot before letting her head fall on the table in exhaustion. When she awoke to Ron entering the kitchen, she had no idea how long she had been there. He put on the kettle and slumped into a chair opposite her.

“You would not believe what has happened, ‘Mione.”

Almost involuntarily, her eyes traveled to the counter, and she blushed.

“What, Ron?”

“The government has fallen. Kingsley mounted a peaceful coup armed with evidence from Flitwick and McGonagall. The Minister resigned; Atlee’s been sacked. Harry and I will stay on, but most of the rest of the office is gone. I’m supposed to tell you to keep your ten o’clock appointment, but instead of an interrogation they want your help and Snape’s with the investigation.”

A barrage of thoughts flooded her. “I should owl him,” she said, bolting from her seat for parchment and quill.

“Is that all you have to say?”

“No, Ron, so much more, but perhaps it would be better to take it on after sleep and food.”

“What do you mean? What do you think about what I told you?” His anger was surfacing again.

“I’m glad you will keep your job. I’m glad that Snape and I aren’t in trouble.”

“That’s all? Do you have any idea what this day has been like for me? To find out my wife lied…”

“Did I lie?”

“So you told me that you and SNAPE were going to Hogwarts to teach children about Muggle…sex items, and I just forgot?” he roared.

“Not children, Ron. Sexually active students who have been tricked by their government. Do you understand how that feels?”

“Oh here we go, with the tragedy of your life, falling pregnant, being burdened with an unwanted…”

Instead of yelling back, she just stared at him in amazement. He no longer had the power to make her feel small and put in her place.

“I will love this baby,” she said in a steely voice.

“Well, that’s jolly good…”

She continued, speaking over him rather loudly. “That doesn’t change my circumstance of being pregnant against my will. And it doesn’t change my feeling that while I will raise this child and Rose and Hugo with you, I don’t want to be married to you anymore.”


	24. Chapter Thirteen: May 2006, Part Four

 

**Chapter Thirteen**

**May 2006, Part Four**

She tumbled out of the floo and into the Aurors’ office. She had never been there physically, but had heard about it so many times over the years, she recognized it immediately. Her eyes found Harry and Ron, who were standing at the front of the room together looking horrified. She desperately wanted to call out to them, but she thought it might not be the smartest move. She needed them to be fair and as impartial as possible if they were truly going to help.

She had imagined this scene so many times in the last few days. Now that they were here, it was almost hard to believe. Snape was just ahead of her, his hands secured magically behind his back. He was being led to a corridor by the two Aurors at his side. When they reached the corner, she could see there were a series of doors down a long hall. Snape was guided into one, and she was put in another.

“We’ll be with you in a moment, Miss Granger,” one of the Aurors said, and they both walked towards the door.

“Am I under arrest?”

“We will be with you in a moment.”

“Wait!” she called, but they were gone and she heard them latch the door behind them. She followed to test the door. Sure enough, it was locked. She fought the urge to try to charm it open. Her magic was no doubt being monitored, and she wanted to avoid any trouble. She realized that she desperately needed the loo.

“Augh!” she called out against walls that were surely silenced.

About the time she was going to have to relieve herself in a corner, the door latch clicked.

“May I please visit the loo?” she said, almost in tears.

“Yes,” Auror Atlee said. “Auror Jackson, accompany Miss Granger to the lavatory.”

“Yes sir.” The female Auror took her arm lightly, Hermione noticed. They walked across the room. Hermione couldn’t fine the boys. As they were walking through the door, over its squeak, the Auror whispered, almost inaudibly, in her ear. “Harry and Ron are doing everything they can to join us in the room.”

“Thank you,” Hermione mouthed. She made it to the toilet just in time, and then washed her hands and looked at her face in the mirror. The lighting was bad, but even still she looked awful—terrified and pale. She took a deep breath and followed Auror Jackson back to the interrogation room.

“Miss Granger, please sit. I will allow Aurors Potter and Weasley to attend this session, but only as a courtesy. Neither will be able to speak, is that understood?” He was clearly addressing all three of them.

“Yes sir, but could one of them go to the room where Mr. Snape is being held?” Hermione asked.

“NO, Miss Granger!” Auror Atlee thundered.

She cursed herself and the boys for never learning legilimency to any usable degree. It would come in handy right now.

“Am I under arrest?” she spoke up, trying to mask all her fear and sound confident.

“No, Miss Granger. Not at this stage. We do have many questions about your…collaboration with Mr. Snape.”

She looked him dead in the eye and waited. It seemed to throw him off slightly.

“Yes, well,” he shuffled through his notes. “When did you start working with Mr. Snape?”

“What do you mean? On this project? Working with him in general? He taught me first year potions during the 1991-92 school year. I supposed that was the first time…”

“That’s not what I mean! When did you start this project with him?”

“May second of this year.”

“Two…and a half weeks ago?”

“For this project? Yes.”

“And why did you decide to work together?”

“That was the day we found out about the pregnancy crisis. We found out about it separately, and he contacted me about it.”

“Why?”

“Why what, sir?”

“Why would he contact you about this? Why does one of the most senior researchers at the Ministry reach out to a part time university instructor?”

“I’m also a lab tech,” she said calmly.

“Mr. Snape has his own lab. Why did he need to consult with you?”

“We have collaborated on my work, in an unofficial capacity for about the last year or so. He found out about some elves who had died and whose bodies had been taken to the Ministry labs at St. Mungo’s. Because he was familiar with my work, he wanted to let me know about that.”

“So it was just a coincidence that this happened the same day both of you, as you stated, discovered the pregnancy epidemic?”

Ugh, he had pushed her into a corner. She was torn over being perfectly honest. If it came out later, it would be something they could nail them with. If she spoke out now, it would no doubt be used against them.

“Am I allowed legal counsel?” she asked.

“Do you need it?” Atlee said as if he were laying another trap.

“I’ve never been interrogated before by Aurors, so I’m not sure. You say I’m not under arrest, but I was locked in here for a time. I assume I’m not allowed to leave now without answering your questions.”

“May I, Auror Atlee?” Harry spoke up.

“Be very careful, Potter,” Atlee warned.

“This is the time to answer the questions fully,” Harry told her, his meaning clear. _While we are in here with you to record and witness._

“Mr. Snape contacted me that day specifically because he was afraid I might be pregnant.”

“Why would he be concerned about this?”

“Because it would be his child if I were.”

She sent a silent apology to Harry and Ron via look. Both appeared as if they might start regurgitating slugs at any moment, but they kept completely silent.

“I see. You and Snape are in a relationship?”

She had no idea how to answer this. How he would answer this. “Mr. Snape and I have been friends for seven years.”

“A bit more than friends,” he said with a snort.

She bit back on the retort she wanted to issue.

 “And he miraculously discovered that the potion he had brewed was the source of both the pregnancies and the dead elves?”

“Not exactly. He proved, and this was verified by Professor Lewis in my department at the university, that the potion was in the food. At that point, notifying the public took precedence over connecting the two events. We have not definitively proven that the potion caused either event, but there is enough evidence for a theory—stronger towards the pregnancies than the deaths of the elves at this point. We have a tremendous amount of work to do.” _And you are wasting our time._

Ron snorted ever so slightly and then covered it up with a cough. She was relieved that she hadn’t lost him completely. Then the next question came.

“At what point in your friendship,” he said the last word with a sneer, “did you become sexually involved with Snape?”

“What does that have to do with any of this?” she asked as calmly as she could manage.

“Just answer, Hermione. It’s not illegal,” Harry said, a bit pointedly to his boss, she thought.

“Seven years ago.”

Harry and Ron looked like they were about to fall out of their chairs.

“Were you even of age then?”

“I was nineteen. I was no longer a student at Hogwarts.”

“He was, however, still a professor,” Atlee said, clearly to shame them both.

“Yes, he was,” she answered honestly.

“And are you pregnant?”

“No, I’m not.”

“You were able to avoid pregnancy while so many others…”

“We accounted for that in the documents. I don’t eat Ministry food.”

“So you knew to avoid it?”

“No, sir. I don’t care for it.”

Atlee then took her through the evidence that he obviously wasn’t familiar with. He spent a long time on Snape’s work product, which was expected. Throughout the interrogation, he peppered her with questions concerning her sexual relationship with Snape. In what seemed hours later, he concluded.

“You need to be in a place where you can be contacted immediately, Miss Granger. More questions are sure to arise,” he said threateningly.

“I am either at Fosters’ Café, the room above it, Magical Creatures department at university, or running by the river. If I am on a run, I will be home usually within an hour.” She couldn’t keep the weariness from her voice.

“You may not leave town until we give you explicit permission, do you understand?”

“Yes sir.”

“Potter and Weasley, Jackson, come with me,” Atlee said.

“May I stay and wait for Mr. Snape?” she asked.

“Mr. Snape will not be leaving any time soon,” he sneered.

“Go home, Hermione,” Harry implored her. _I will talk to you as soon as I can._ He might as well have said it. Ron took her elbow and squeezed gently as she passed him. That was clear as well. Perhaps they were all better at legilimency than she thought. _I love you both_ , she sent out to the universe.

“My room isn’t connected to floo network,” she said to Atlee.

“You may apparate at the Ministry point.”

“Thank you,” she said. She felt like she should probably return to the university, but it was already evening, and she was both exhausted and starving. Tomorrow she would be back at work, but she could hardly stand. She apparated to the alley. The café was already closed, so she went upstairs and made herself egg, tea, and toast. She was too hungry not to eat, but she didn’t enjoy a bite of it. Big tears started to fall down her cheeks. She couldn’t help but think of Snape in that room being confronted with what she had said and the doubtless horrifying “evidence” from the Ministry.

She took a quick shower and changed into comfortable clothes. She had always liked being away from the floo network at home, but now it was torture. She tried to read, but the words were just a blur. She retrieved a journal with empty space in it and started writing down everything she could remember from that day. After about five pages, she heard a knock at her door.

“’Mione?” It was Ron’s voice.

She almost never locked it when she was there, but she had that night. She opened it from across the room with her wand and the boys strode in. She went from quiet tears to sobs as soon as she saw them. They enveloped her and she cried on one and then the other shoulder.

“Shhhhh,” Ron whispered, and she felt very much like Sophie.

“What’s happening with him?” she said.

“It’s not good, ‘Mione,” Harry said. “They are trying to blame him for everything.”

“Have you seen him?” she implored.

“They won’t let us in. We’re tainted because of you.”

“You are his best hope!” she cried.

“Yeah, they can’t stop us investigating,” Ron assured her. “We just won’t have contact with him.”

“Atlee is a Ministry man, through and through, but Kingsley is ultimately in charge, and he is a different story.” Harry reassured her. “He will let us go through everything. Snape is innocent?”

“Yes!”

“So, he’s your bloke?” Ron said.

“Yeah.”

“For seven years?”

“Yeah.”

“What about…what’s his name, Howard?”

“What about him? I wasn’t with Snape when I was serious with Howard. There were a few breaks in there,” she answered selectively.

“How…?” Harry couldn’t find the words.

“What do you want to know? We were single. We were both adults, no matter what arsehole back there wanted to insinuate. Judge me if you want, but it was as much me as him.”

“So, is it serious?” Harry was trying so hard.

“I don’t know. It wasn’t, but the last few weeks have been different.”

“Are you in love with him?” Ron asked.

Holy Merlin what a question from him. _No, you idiot, I’m in love with you_ would have been her answer for so long. It wasn’t now, she realized. She adored Ron still, but that longing that she had lived with for years and years…was gone.

“I don’t know, Ronald. I’m terrified for him anyway. What’s going to happen—they will keep him overnight?”

“He is being detained,” Harry said.

“What does that mean?”

“We have a holding room for tonight. Tomorrow he will be transferred.”

“To Azkaban?” she sobbed.

“It’s not what it was, ‘Mione. It’s where all people charged and waiting for the Wizengamot to hear their case go. There are no dementors. He will have food and a bed.”

“Will I be able to see him? Will he have any legal help?”

“Yes, you can see him, probably as early as tomorrow night. Legal counsel will be up to him. You can help him with that, be his person on the outside, you know.” Ron said.

“We will do everything we can to figure this out, Hermione,” Harry said.

“Thank you both. Go home to your families and get some sleep. I will be at university all day tomorrow, so parchment, okay?” she said. She hugged each one in turn.

She slept fitfully and showed up for her shift. Becoming a member of the faculty would mean she would have to give up this job. _Could_ give up this job? She wasn’t sure about her feelings right then. She shoved them down anyway and served breakfast.

The overwhelming emotions came rushing back as soon as she arrived at work. She needed to solve the remaining questions about the death of the elves. She needed to know what was going on at the Ministry. She needed to find out from Professor Lewis what he expected of her. She made herself a cup of tea and sat at her desk to organize her thoughts. She pulled out her Harry and Ron parchment.

‘M: Please tell me as soon as you know anything.

H: All the Ministry documents contradict his story. His documents don’t match. There is no magical signature on any of them that would indicate they have been changed, but it’s the same for his. They don’t appear to be altered either. He is being charged with conspiracy.

‘M: He’s a conspiracy of one? That’s ludicrous!

H: They are charging his lackeys at the lab as well.

‘M: Not his boss, though?

H: We can’t find evidence that implicates her. There are still boxes upon boxes, though. It will be a long investigation.

‘M: When will he be transferred?

H: They are doing it now.

‘M: When can I see him?

H: They allow visitors after 6 P.M.

‘M: Thank you, Harry.

H: Of course. I’ll let you know if we find anything.

She breathed in and out and then went to Professor Lewis’s office.

“Thank you so much for everything you did yesterday. You must have been up all night. I had to go through the evidence at the Aurors’ office yesterday, and everything was presented so logically.”

“I’m afraid it wasn’t enough. They sent me away immediately after we arrived. I hear they are holding Mr. Snape.”

“Yes, I think that was unavoidable. He has some allies in the Aurors’ office, though. I wanted to talk to you about him.”

“Tea first?” Professor Lewis asked.

“Yes. I’m sorry to take you away from your day again.”

“Miss Granger, this business is my day until it’s resolved. It’s the biggest news we’ve had since the war.”

She slumped into a chair in front of his desk at that pronouncement. Perhaps someday she could avoid being a part of the biggest news. He handed her a cup of tea.

“What did you want to discuss?”

“If Mr. Snape is exonerated, I would like him to work at the lab here. If I want to help the elves, I need to collaborate with him. Otherwise, I will need to take an extensive course in potions, and I don’t have time.”

“If he is exonerated, I would be happy to speak with him about it. Are you sure he would want the position? It’s part time and nowhere near as prestigious as his career at the Ministry hospital.”

“He does not care about that. Thank you. It may be moot, but I won’t give up hope.”

“No, you shouldn’t. You will need to design a course outline for next term. You don’t need my approval on the rest of your work, but I would like for you to report to me of your progress. Your fellow faculty members would like to help you in any way they can.”

“Thank you…I can’t begin to…thank you.”

“No need, Miss Granger.”

“I have a class this afternoon, and I will be in the lab for the rest of the day. How is the food disposal going?”

“It’s rather chaotic. People are panicking. I would guess the Muggle shops are doing very well at the moment.”

 _Arthur must be up to his ears_ , she thought.

She worked and tried not to think about anything else. At the lab, she filled her journal with questions about blood levels and toxicity. At four she apparated to Snape’s flat. She had no idea if she would be able to enter or if he had warded it against her, or more likely, anyone who wasn’t him. She pointed her wand tentatively at his door knob and was relieved to hear a little whoosh, and then the door was slightly ajar.

She entered and headed straight for the wardrobe in his bedroom. It was immaculately organized by type of clothing and then colour. She pulled some clean shirts, trousers, and robes, and laid them on the bed. Then she went to the bureau for socks and underwear, also folded as neatly as one would find in a fine shop. In the bottom drawer, there were some cotton shirts and pajama bottoms, so she added those to the growing pile. 

She walked to the bathroom and found soap, shampoo, and his toothbrush and paste. In a small drawer, there was a comb, some hair bands, and thin black ribbons. There were shaving items as well, a heavy metal Muggle-style razor and a can of shaving cream. She shuddered at the invasion of his privacy before she opened a small potions cabinet behind his bathroom mirror. The phials were unlabeled, which made her relieved. She placed all five on the counter and found a leather pouch under the sink. She placed his toiletries in the pouch and then found a larger case for his clothes. He had four books stacked on his bedside table beside a smaller stack of potions journals. She added them to the case and then shrank the works to the size of a small handbag.

She went to his floo and called for Azkaban. After she was granted permission, she went through the hearth and landed in a large, white room. There was a window on the far side with a unsmiling witch at a desk directly across from the floo.

“Yes?” the witch barked.

“I’m here to visit Severus Snape. I’ve brought some of his things.”

“We must go through them. You may see the prisoner.” She pointed her wand, and a door appeared in the side of the room.

“Should I leave this with you?” Hermione asked and held up the small black bag.

“No, Mr. Davis will take it on the other side.” She turned away to indicate that the conversation was over.

Hermione walked through the door and was met immediately by a harried, portly guard of about fifty with scant sandy-coloured hair.

“Bag?” he barked.

She handed it over.

“Charmed?”

“Yes.”

“Put it on the table, and remove the charm,” the guard she presumed was Mr. Davis said. He spoke to her as if she were a criminal. She put the bag on the table and started unpacking.

“He can’t have any of this,” he sneered at the case with the toiletries. “He has soap and a toothbrush.”

“The potions?”

“We will provide anything he needs.”

From his tone, Hermione doubted it.

“Thank you. And his clothes?”

“We will keep them for his date with the Wizengamot, Otherwise, he will wear prison issue.”

Hermione’s heart sank, but she wanted to save her battles for after she saw him. She had no idea what condition he would be in.

“His books?” she said softly.

“He can have one.”

She chose the thickest. It had been on the top of the stack and was a comprehensive history of potion-making in Europe with a bookmark a third of the way in.

“May I see him now?”

“This way.”

He led her down a long hall. She could nether see nor hear any prisoners, but she suspected they were right there behind warded and charmed walls When they were about half way down the hall he stopped.

“SNAPE,” he shouted. “Visitor.”

He flicked his wand and a small stool appeared as a patch on the wall faded away to reveal bars. The tiny cell had a bed and a toilet and nothing else except Snape who was sitting on the bed with his knees at his chest leaning against the wall.

She grabbed on to the bars. “Snape!” she said and used all her control to avoid bursting into tears.

“Granger,” he said and rose from the bed to approach her.

“May I touch him?” she asked Mr. Davis, who laughed. She realized that the bars were just for show, and that there was an invisible field that separated them. She sighed heavily and rolled her eyes to Snape at her own naivete. He smiled at her.

“Must you stay?” she asked Mr. Davis.

“I’ll be down the hall. You have twenty minutes.”

“How are you? Stupid question, I know, but…how are you? I brought you all sorts of things, but the only item they will let you have is a book. I choose the European potions one that was by your bed. I hope…”

“Granger, hush. I’m fine.”

He didn’t seem fine. The dark circles were back under his eyes, and his hair was hanging in limp curtains by his head.

“Have you eaten?” she asked.

“They feed us. Have you eaten?” he asked.

“Not really.”

“Granger, you won’t help me by making yourself ill.”

“I know. I’m so, so sorry about the interrogation, Harry urged me to tell the truth, but I should have dodged them, I think.”

“I would be here no matter what you said. It’s all going to come down to the timeline and the documents. Telling the truth was the right thing to do. They asked me about it, and I told them the truth as well. If our stories match…”

She felt a flood of relief. “They should. Harry and Ron and Kingsley are in your corner. They are trying to find anything that will exonerate you.”

“It’s a long-shot. Gould and the rest of them were very thorough.”

“How could she do this to you? She was your friend!”

“Not really. Better me than her, I’m sure is what she’s thinking.”

“I’m calling McGonagall and Flitwick, and anyone else with standing that will speak up for you.”

“Thank you.”

“What about legal counsel?”

“My funds at Gringotts are frozen.”

“That’s so unfair! How are you supposed to…”

“I’m not.”

“Ugh, this fucking society. What about your flat?”

“What about it?”

“You own it outright?”

“Yes.”

“I could use it to leverage payment for…someone to help. I wish I had some money, but everything I bring in goes to the Muggle uni. I wish I had saved some.”

“Granger, you do very well on your pittance. The flat is a good idea. I have some names to give you.” He repeated the names to her, and she committed them to memory.

“Professor Lewis said you could work in the lab. We have to get you out of here.”

“Thank you. Thank you for the book, too.”

“Of course.”

Mr. Davis was skulking around. “Your twenty minutes are about to expire.”

“I’ll be back tomorrow,”

“You don’t have to,” he said.

“I have a journal full of questions from just a few hours in the lab today!”

He chuckled. “By all means, bring the journal.”

“I will. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I’ll be here.”

With that, Davis flicked his wand, and the room and Snape disappeared.

That began the routine for the next five days. Shift in the morning, as much work as possible during the day. That second day Professor Lewis covered her class so she could go into London and find the solicitors that he had mentioned. That ended up being a complete waste of time. One didn’t handle any criminal procedure, and the other was swamped and refused to take new cases. She implored them for further recommendations, and both had no names for her. She cursed the wizarding world and decided to do it herself. She informed Harry and Ron of this development, and they promised to pass on anything they found, but they had nothing so far.

She arrived at Azkaban sharp at six and went through the routine with Davis. He balked at letting her bring her journal, but she threatened to file a complaint right then. He apparently decided it was not a battle to fight.

Snape looked older still than he had the day before. He had taken part of his light blue jail robe and made a ribbon with which to tie his hair away from his face. His hair was in terrible condition, and it made her think back to his dungeon bat days and his greasy locks. He had taken such care of it since then. It’s not something he had ever discussed, of course, but this was just one more piece of humiliation heaped on him.

“I brought hair things for you, in the bag they wouldn’t give you,” she cursed her society some more.

“They took my book for ripping my clothes, but I couldn’t read it anyway,” he said wearily.

“Are you in the dark in there?” she asked, horrified.

“No. I take a potion for my eyesight that they won’t let me have. I wish I had developed a charm instead.”

“I brought all your potions as well, and since I am your solicitor, sorry about that by the way, I will demand they give you what you need.”

“The others didn’t work out?”

“No, they were pathetic anyway. I won’t quit until you are out, I promise.”

“I believe you,” he said quietly. “Your journal?”

“Yes,” she said. They spent ten minutes going over her work. He was as sharp as ever, and she realized that for no other reason than to keep him thinking, she must be there every day. When their time was growing short, he quickly changed the subject.

“Hermione, thank you for this.”

 “It’s all my fault! If I had just let you resign…” She cried and then inwardly cursed herself for breaking down as she wanted to keep things as light as possible when she was there.

“It is not your fault! They would have blamed me in any scenario. Why do you think their evidence is as extensive as it is? It’s been the plan all along.”

Tears were running down her face as Davis approached. She moved as close to the wall as she could. “I think about you every minute, Severus. I will NOT stop…”

She heard a little sob break forth from him before the wall went up. She thundered at Davis. “My client has potions he needs that he has not been given. He has also been punished for using his uniform to tie back his hair when I brought him supplies for that as well. You will give him his necessities, or I will go straight to the Wizengamot and file suit after suit until something is done. I will go to the press, I will go to the Ministry, I will go to every bloody person who will listen if he does not have his essentials when I return tomorrow, DO YOU UNDERSTAND? I am NOT the witch you want as your enemy, believe me!”

The next evening, Snape had his book again and had his hair tied back with his own band although it was still unwashed. His three day beard revealed he had not been given his shaving supplies.

“They won’t give you your razor?”

“They are watching me for self-harm,” he said with a sneer.

She rolled her eyes. “Can you see?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“There are more books and journals with your belongings, so if you finish that one, they should let you switch it out. Is there another I could bring you?”

“No, Granger, the ones by the bed are what I would want. Journal?”

They got to work. There was no good news from the Aurors’ office, so she didn’t bring it up.

When Davis approached, Snape took in a breath. “Your visits are keeping me going, Granger.”

“Same for me. I’ll see you tomorrow, Snape.”

“Hermione,” he said as the guard’s wand was raised.

“Severus!” she said just as he disappeared. She resisted cursing Davis. She needed him. “Thank you for giving him his things,” she said as she strode to the door.

The fifth day was a Saturday, and she had no hope of progress. She took her frustrations out on a seven-mile run. She practically sprinted the last mile to punish herself and to make herself so weary that after her visit, she could collapse in bed and pass out for eight hours of no thought. When she returned home to shower before her trip to Azkaban, she saw her parchment filled. At the top in big bold letters were the words she had dreamed of seeing:

 

**WE FOUND IT!**

She ran right out the door, parchment clutched in her hands and apparated directly to the Ministry and ran full-speed to the elevators and then to the Aurors’ office. There, in the middle of a mostly empty room, sat a very satisfied looking trio of Harry, Ron, and Kingsley.

“Kisses begin here, ‘Mione,” Ron said. “Pucker up!” He ran for her and took her in his arms, kissed her showily on the cheek.

“You did it?”

“We did,” Harry said and stood to her for his kiss.

“Can we get him out?”

“Yes, we were just waiting for you,” Kingsley said. “What on earth?” he said, looking at her sweaty clothes and wet hair.

“I was running; don’t ask. Can we leave right now?” she asked.

In moments, they were arriving at the Azkaban office floo. Davis was in the adjacent staff room with a teacup to his lips.

“Release papers for Severus Snape, signed by the head of the Auror office, Hermione said quite loudly. He will need all his things packed and ready, and I will want to examine them to make sure he is leaving with everything I brought for him,” she directed the last part at Davis, who was staring at her in disbelief. He gulped down the rest of his tea and strode off indignantly.

“Aaaaahhhh!” she did a little happy dance in the office. “What was it? What did you find?” The boys were looking at her as if she were an amusing little girl.

“They were very thorough in changing everything, but there was one memo that they neglected to delete the magical signature. We could retrieve the original. It was clear he was never in the loop. Gould and a man from the Office of Marriage and Family plotted the whole thing. They knew Snape would never go along with it, so they kept him on the outside.”

She threw her arms around both again, and they held her as happy tears fell. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she murmured. And they patted her and soaked up the glory.

About ten minutes later, Snape appeared in the doorway, hair still in an awful state, but in his own clothes. She ran toward him, and he caught her in his arms.

“Granger, you are soaking wet,” he said in a deadpan.

“I ran all afternoon. I had no idea they were close. It’s all Harry and Ron, Snape, they did it.”

Without letting her go, Snape said, “Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, thank you…”

“Doin’ our job, Sir,” Ron said.

Hermione could tell that the boys were finding this whole scene surreal, but she really couldn’t be bothered to care.

“Let me take you home,” she said and detached herself from him and gathered his bag. “Yours? Mine?”

“Yours, Granger, at least first. I’ve been dreaming of a fry-up for four days.”

“Can you get home without the floo?” Harry asked. Snape gave him a look Harry hadn’t seen since he was in school, and his eyes became wide before he shook it off.

“Yes, Potter, I think we can apparate.”

“Thank you again for everything,” Hermione said pointedly, and Snape sighed.

“Yes, thank you.”

The boys left through the floo, and she gripped on to him and apparated them to the alley behind the café. They climbed the stairs; he seemed older and wearier, but she imagined a week wouldn’t do too much permanent damage.

“Shower, food, bed?”

“Please,” he said.

She went into the lav with him and turned the water on.

“Let me?” she asked. She wanted to take care of him, but she didn’t want to insult him.

“If you must,” but he turned to her and made no moves to do for himself.

She stripped him and then took his hand and led him into the shower. She washed the parts of him she could easily reach, and then she pushed him gently down to the bottom of the tub and washed his face and then his hair. He let her do all of it, groaning as she massaged his head. She left him under the spray where he seemed quite content while she washed herself, and then found a soft towel for each of them.

He eschewed his formal clothes for a pair of faded denims from the weekend before and a soft, cotton t-shirt. He dried his hair with his wand, and it fell against his face in soft layers, looking shiny and healthy again. She matched his outfit and wound her mop of curls on her head before they headed down, hand-in-hand to the café.

Saturdays were not usually busy as it wasn’t really a date place. They sat across from each other in a booth near the front window, and Marilyn waited on them.

“He’ll have full English, kippers, everything, extra,” she said. “I’ll have…I’ll have the same but I won’t eat the meat…”

“I’ll eat yours,” he said at once.

“Bangers?”

He gave her a look like she had placed a sack of galleons in front of him.

“Bangers,” she said to Marilyn. “And a basket of chips.” His eyebrows shot up gleefully.

“Tea?” Marilyn asked, and he groaned.

“Please, and blackberry jam.’

“You’ve got it,” Marilyn shuffled to the kitchen, and Hermione placed her hand on the table. He took it.

“Tell me about Potter and Weasley. How _did_ they?”

She told him what she knew of the story, which lasted through their first cup of tea. Then there was a large stretch of silence when the food arrived. She needed nourishment almost as much as he did; it had been her most stressful week since the end of the war, but she couldn’t stop herself from watching him enjoy every bite. She slathered some jam for him on one of her soldiers, and plopped it on his plate with the sausage from hers.

They were both satisfied by the third cup of tea, and they sipped it quietly and speculated about what would happen next in the legal investigation.

“I am not getting even one hope up,” she said. “They are likely to weasel out....”

“Perhaps. A good deal of victims to answer to, though.”

“They are likely to want you back at the lab. I’m sure they’ll sack most everyone else.”

“Not going back.”

“Really?” She felt a smile take over her face. “Does that mean you’re staying here?”

“Here as in _here_? Your room is cozy, and I like the café, but I think we will need a bigger place.”


	25. Chapter Thirteen: May 2006, Part Four

 

**Chapter Thirteen**

**May 2006, Part Four**

 

“What the hell, Hermione?” Ron’s face had gone white. “What do you mean…are you leaving me?”

He looked devastated and about to cry, and it was not the reaction she had expected.

“Ronald, please think about this for a moment. I think you should be relieved.”

“What are you talking about?” he was looking at her as if she had gone mad.

“You can barely tolerate me most of the time. You cannot possibly be happy with me and with this marriage.”

“I’ve never said I didn’t want to be married to you!”

“No you haven’t said it, but do you? Do you really? Are you happy with me, Ron? Put the kids and those feelings aside for a moment. Are you happy with us?”

“How can I put them aside? They are what makes us…” he stopped.

“Yes, right? They are what makes us. Can you imagine what it will be like when they go to school, and you must spend your time here just with me? You will hate it, and you will hate me, and Ron, I’m tired of living with someone who doesn’t really love me or desire me, or have any feelings for me outside of a co-parent and maybe a friend, but often not even that. I’m not blaming you. I pushed you into it from the beginning, Molly and I, right? And it wasn’t fair to you, and it’s not fair to either of us.”

“Do you hate me?” He seemed baffled.

“Of course not! Please just be honest with yourself, Ron. You don’t want to live with me or share a bed or make love or even talk to me a lot of the time.”

“None of this makes any sense,” he was rubbing his hands through his hair. “I have to go to bed.”

“The kids are at the Burrow. We can stay up…”

“I’m starting day shift tomorrow in…” he looked the clock on the wall, “Three hours. I put in for days because early pregnancy is so hard for you; I wanted to be home to help you with Rosie and Hugo in the evenings.” He rose from the table and headed for the stairs without looking back.

It was five by then, and Hermione was afraid if she fell asleep, it would be more difficult than if she just plowed through. Work seemed weeks in the past, but she pulled out her bag and went through some recent tests they had been doing before the world imploded around her. She purposely banished all thoughts of Snape and Ron from her mind and escaped into work as she had done a hundred times before.

At six, she got up from the table and walked to her bath. She stripped her clothes slowly. She could smell Snape and the sex as she removed her knickers, and she felt both thrilled and guilty at the same time. She took a long shower and then put on her most dignified skirt and blouse with a more formal black robe than she usually wore. She straightened her hair and wore more make-up than usual.

Ron was asleep when she went in to retrieve her best shoes, and she didn’t want to disturb him before his wand went off. She grabbed them, and then tiptoed back to the kitchen. She left him a note that she would pick up the children from nursery that afternoon, that she would cook dinner that night, and that they would talk later. She signed her given name rather than the ‘M that she usually used for his pet name for her.

She owled the Burrow, hoping that they were still asleep, asking for Arthur to take the children to the nursery on his way to work. She packed up her work bag and left for the floo. She quickly arrived in the basement of St. Mungo’s. The whole department looked as if it had been ransacked. Her office was untouched. She found her refuge in her work, as she always had, and the time flew. At nine forty-five, she stepped through the floo to the Ministry for her ten o’clock appointment.

There were witches and wizards throughout the grand foyer, mostly looking in a daze. Some were holding boxes, and there were stray papers blowing about. Several people were openly weeping, most were gathered in groups speaking in hushed whispers. She made her way to the bank of elevators. In all her time here, she had never been in the office of the Minister. She said the name of the office clearly into the box. There was a pause and then, a woman’s voice said, “Thank you Madam Granger-Weasley.”

The elevator stopped at floor eight and a half, which Hermione had no idea even existed, and she walked down a long, luxuriously carpeted hall. There was parchment strewn everywhere with the odd office supply and personal item—a baby picture in which the subject continually blew a kiss and then giggled was at her feet. The staff in this hall had obviously made a hasty exit within the last several hours.

There were two huge gold doors at the end of the hall, one of which was ajar. She poked her head in. Snape was the first person she saw, and she beamed at him without thinking about it first. He gave her a look she couldn’t read but he didn’t seem upset.

“Hermione!” Kingsley Shacklebolt’s voice boomed across the space. “Come in and have a seat. Severus was just telling me a few details of your…mission from yesterday. Would you care for tea?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Kingsley, please.” He said and turned to his tea service.

Hermione realized again that she was pregnant when the thought of tea made her gag.

Snape pulled a phial of her potion from his robe and handed it to her. She drank it down gratefully.

“When did you get this? I was in the office this morning.”

“I came straight from home. I couldn’t sleep after I received your owl, so I brewed some at home. It’s not difficult. I should give you the instructions.”

“Hermione, are you unwell?” Kingsley asked as he handed them their teacups.

“I am pregnant like everyone else,” she said.

“Oh, yes.”

She appreciated that he offered her neither congratulations or condolences.

“We have much work to do, as you can imagine,” the new Minister began. I would like for the two of you to head up our investigation in the lab. Hermione, I would like to appoint you to be interim head of research with the understanding that it will likely be permanent. Severus, I would like you to be interim lab director with the same caveat.”

“I will certainly accept for as long as you need me for the investigation. For the other…well, I’m honoured,” she said.

“Likewise,” Snape agreed.

“We are still trying to dig out here, and to be frank, both of you look awful. Did either of you sleep last night?”

“Not really,” she answered.

“Then let’s begin first thing tomorrow. We will present you with your new compensation packages later in the week if that is acceptable.”

She felt more overwhelmed than ever and could only nod.

“That would be fine,” Snape said. He took a drink from his cup and then stood and offered her a hand. She planted her feet firmly before she rose, afraid she might stumble. Kingsley looked at her with concern.

“Severus, will you see Hermione home?”

“Yes, of course,” Snape said, and took her arm firmly as he wrapped the other around her. She wanted to melt into his side, but she didn’t in front of Shacklebolt.

“I will see you in the morning at St. Mungo’s at eight. If we are to learn just what happened, we think that is where to start.”

“Yes, thank you,” she said.

She and Snape walked down the hall and to the elevator bank. “Don’t say anything here, Granger,” he muttered in her ear.

She wasn’t planning to, but just then she imagined them declaring their love loudly to each other in the grand foyer, and it made her giggle.

“I will try to stay in control,” she whispered.

They silently rode the elevator down and through the foyer outside to the courtyard where people apparated.

“Your home? Mine?” he said quietly.

“Yours.”

He grasped her more tightly and apparated them behind his building. She took his hand as they walked to the front, up the steps and then to the door of his flat. She realized she had been there twenty-four hours before when they were preparing to go to Hogwarts, but it seemed like days.

“We can just sleep, Granger,” he said.

“Do you have anything I could change into? A t-shirt?”

He went to the back of the flat and brought back a black v-neck shirt. She took it from him; it was incredibly soft and smelled of him, and she had to stop herself from putting it against her face.

“The lavatory is here,” he said. “The other door leads to my bedroom. I can sleep in the sitting room…”

“Please don’t,” she said.

He looked at her and nodded, and then she entered his bathroom and started changing. She hung her nice clothes on a hook on the other side of the door. She put his shirt on over her bra and knickers and then looked at herself in the mirror. The v-neck was flattering. Her thighs were a disaster. She took her hair down. She couldn’t hide in there forever.

She opened the door to his room tentatively. He was seated on the bed looking at the time function on his wand. He was wearing a white vest and dark grey boxers. His hair was still tied back. He looked beautiful. He glanced over at her and his hands froze for a moment before they resumed their occupation. “What time do you need to leave?”

“I should pick up Rose and Hugo by four.”

“Three then?”

“Yes.”

Her finished with the wand and then turned down the duvet on the other side of the bed for her.

She climbed in and realized as she lay her head on the pillow, she could be asleep in moments. Her brain was all for it. Her body, however…her body was hyper aware that he was right there. He wasn’t touching her, but she could feel him there behind her. She lay like that for a moment debating what she should do: fall asleep, wait for him to pull her over, or back into him. She was a Gryffindor. She moved a fraction of an inch at a time until her whole back side was touching his front. He enveloped her with his arm.

“Granger,” he said warily.

“Shhhh,” she said and turned around, putting her mouth on his.

He kissed her back, so passionately, closing his eyes, caressing her tongue with his. Then he let out an agonized moan and removed his mouth from hers.

“Granger,” he whispered. “I can’t…I can’t. I can’t do this and then send you home to your husband and then be with you tomorrow and then send you to him again. I can’t.”

“No, Snape. I’m not going to be married to him. I told him last night.”

“What?” he sat up in bed. “What…did you…you are pregnant with his child!”

“I didn’t leave him for you; you just helped push it along!” she sat up beside him. “Don’t worry; I’m not moving in here!”

“That’s not what I am…that’s the least of my worries, Granger,” he put his hand to his forehead.

She moved so she was sitting on her knees. His hair was coming out of the band that sat at the nape of his neck, and she brushed the stray locks behind his ears.

“I’m well-aware of the mess I’m in,” she said, craning her face to force him to look at her. “But I am done, DONE, so done with my marriage. It’s finished.”

He sat back so he was against the headboard. She pursued him by scooting closer and straddling his lap, and then putting her hands on either side of his face and kissing his mouth. He put his arms around her below her hips right at her arse and moved her closer so there was no space between them. He took possession of her mouth, and she started grinding herself into him. She pulled him from reclining against the headboard, and as soon as there was space, she reached behind him and pulled his vest over his head. He released his arms to assist her, and as the garment hit the floor, he gripped her tightly and flipped them over on the bed so that she was on her back with him just above her.

She wrapped her legs around him and again pressed her center as close to his as possible. He growled and put his hand under her shirt and to one of the cups of her bra. She flinched in pain involuntarily and then cursed herself as he froze.

“Am I hurting you?”

“No, it’s just early pregnancy joys. Please continue, please.”

“Should I not touch…”

She took his hand and put it back on her breast while preventing him from talking by claiming his mouth. He removed the shirt, and then hitched her up, having no trouble with the triple hook closure of her very supportive bra. She wondered how many witches had been in this bed for him to perfect such a move, then she tried to shut her brain down and focus on his lovely chest. He had scars as faded as hers though vastly more extensive, but they didn’t mar how beautiful he was, thin but well-defined with scant hair save the delicious little trail below his navel. She swirled one of his nipples with her fingers, and then pushed him up slightly so she could put her mouth around it.

He shuddered and wrapped her more securely in his arms. Emboldened, she reached a hand down, past the elastic waist of his pants and took his erect cock in her hand. He dove in for her neck, but she didn’t stop her exploration. She stroked the shaft and then feathered her fingers around the large head, feeling for the pearls of wetness that she then took down the shaft again. She had to plant her feet flat to steady herself. She felt restrained by the cotton around her hands, so she worked to divest him of his pants, pulling them down his arse and thighs before he twisted to kick them off.

She took advantage of his weight no longer pinning her and flipped him over onto his back, scampered down and put her mouth on his cock, swirling her tongue around the tip before clamping her lips down and taking his length into her mouth.

“Hermione,” he moaned as she started moving her mouth up and down. She hadn’t done this in a long while, but the skill was coming back quickly. “Granger, stop!” he said rather harshly. She froze and then released him from her mouth.

“Sorry,” she said.

“No,” he said softly. “I won’t last a minute if you continue. Come here,” he pulled her back up and into him arms, kissing her and gently caressing her breast with one hand and wrapping his other arm around her so she was pressed tightly against him again. “Do you know how long I have wanted this?”

“How long?” she breathed against his mouth.

He declined to answer, but settling her prone again, he started kissing down her body from shoulder to breast to belly. He grasped her knickers on both sides of her hips and eased them down. He spread her knees and then kissed up her thighs until he found his way home.

She could feel tongue and fingers and a bit of nose, and she splayed her legs wantonly and let him take her. She called out affirmations loudly, gripping the bedclothes with both hands as he played her exquisitely. She selfishly hung on for minutes, enjoying someone solely focused on her pleasure. Finally, it was all too much, and she came against his mouth and sang a long note as she did.

“Oh, Severus,” she said with her arm over her face, trying to recover. He had inched his way up and had settled in at her side, cradling her. His erection was tucked into her hip, and as satisfied as she was, she was already looking forward to how this would continue.

He was kissing her shoulder, and she craned her neck to look at him. He was wearing a well-earned self-satisfied grin. She burrowed her arm under him and hoisted him on top of her. She took his mouth with hers and then put her hands on both sides of his head, caressing his hair behind his ears again before moving them down to his hips. She spread her legs wide for him and felt his cock burrowing toward her.

“Fuck me,” she whispered, shocking herself that she said the vulgarity aloud but not a bit sorry.

He groaned and pushed inside her. “Oh, yesss,” she said against his mouth as he started moving in her. He sat up and took one of her legs over his shoulder so he could fuck her more deeply.

The headboard of his bed abutted a window, and the room was filled with the natural light of noon. They had ended up with her head at the foot-board, so as she looked up, the light was right behind him, illuminating him. Propped up on her elbows, she could see everything: every line of his face twisted in concentrated pleasure, his well-defined and scarred chest, and the base of his thick cock as it disappeared and emerged again and again. She lay back again and enveloped him with her arms, bringing him down to hold him against her for just a moment. She buried her face in his neck and then kissed his mouth as she held him tight to her chest.

“Severus, Severus, Severus,” she said as a mantra that meant _I love you_ even though she couldn’t make herself utter those words out loud. The way he called back _Hermione_ as he returned to moving inside her made it clear he understood her anyway.

His breath started hitching, and although it wasn’t her primary concern just then, she realized she was on the edge of an orgasm as well. He licked his fingers and brought them down just in time to send her over. She clamped down on him as she came, and that was just it for him as well, and he came and cried out _Oh fuck, Hermione_ in a wail before he collapsed on top of her.

They stayed practically frozen in place, the only movement was Hermione’s fingers caressing his back and sides, for minutes before he scooped her into his arm and moved them so they were the right way on the bed, with their heads near the pillows again although hers was on his chest. Her brain was fuzz and she had no choice but to drift off with her arm firmly around his torso and her leg wrapped around his pelvis.

In what seemed like the next moment, his wand was shaking and humming. She was disoriented for a second before she realized her curls were all over his face, and that she had drooled down his chest. She reached for the black t-shirt to wipe him off and then her mouth before he became fully conscious.

“Three,” he muttered. “What time?”

“I would like to pick up the children close to four. Shower?”

“Have you eaten at all today?” he asked as he was rising for the bed and seemed to be on the hunt for his pants.

“I don’t think so. Have you?”

“The last time I remember eating was breakfast yesterday.” He dressed hastily in his underwear and a clean t-shirt from his bureau. She scrambled around the perimeter of the bed for her knickers.

“Yes, I think so,” she spotted them and pulled them on with the black v-neck.

“That cannot be good for you or your…”

“Baby.”

“Yes. Stay here. I’m unsteady; you shouldn’t be in the shower before you have eaten.”

“I can make it to the kitchen, I think.”

“Fine.”

She followed him into the galley kitchen where she sat at the table, and he began a whirlwind of bread in the toaster and eggs cracking and water in the kettle and set-ups for tea. He was humming and then singing under his breath intermittently. _I resolve to call her up a thousand times a day..._ He put butter and an impressive jam collection in front of her, and in moments, he was presenting her with a plate of eggs and toast. _Must I always be alone…_

“I haven’t been to the shops in days, so sorry for the paltry offering,” he said mid-lyric.

“No, this is lovely.” She buttered one piece of toast and added jam, saving the other to dip into the egg. It was the most delicious meal she could remember eating, and she finished her plate before he did.

“Am I cleared for the shower?” she asked and showed him her clean plate.

“Yes. There are flannels and clean towels in the little cupboard in the lav. Soap and toothpaste in plain sight…”

“Join me, then?” she said.

Ten minutes later she was leaning forward against the back wall of the shower with one foot perched on the ledge as he fucked her from behind with one hand grasping hers on the wall and one wrapped around her hip working dutifully with every thrust. Her hair was piled on her head because she hadn’t thought she had enough time for a full shampoo. He was sucking on the side of her neck.

“Are you close?” he gasped into her ear. “I don’t know how much longer…”

She took his hand and moved it very slightly to the left and then came almost immediately, slamming backward into him so he filled her to the hilt. She felt him burst inside her, and she moved his arms so they were wrapped around her front. When he slipped out of her, she turned around and pressed her mouth on his, closing her eyes and letting the water hit them for minutes before she started nagging herself internally to hurry up.

She dried off and redressed after a quick cleansing charm. She shook out her hair, and he was right behind her with is wand, drying the ends.

“I’ll see you at work in the morning. I will tell you everything with…I’ll tell him everything…”

“That would not be wise.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Granger, be careful with what you say.”

He was right behind her still and they were talking to each other while looking through the mirror she had cleared of some fog with a flannel. The room was still filled with steam.

“Trust me,” she said quietly. “I will see you tomorrow.”

She turned and kissed him and then gathered her things from his sitting room where she had dumped them earlier and flooed from his kitchen to the nursery at the Ministry.

She scooped up each child and smelled both little heads for a hit of normal. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply and them pressed each tight to her, Rose in her left arm and Hugo in her right before the nursery workers helped them into the floo and they whooshed into their own kitchen. She was thinking she had a little over an hour before Ron would be home, except there he was sitting at the kitchen table.

“Daddy!” Rose squealed and wriggled out of Hermione’s arms to go sit on Ron’s lap.

“Da!” Hugo echoed. She placed him on the floor and he toddled over as well. Ron planted him on his other knee and kissed his head.

“I didn’t expect you home…”

“I was sent home by Kingsley to rest and see to my wife. My wife wasn’t here,” he said flatly.

“No.”

“That was odd because Kingsley told me that he had sent her home not twenty minutes before. He said he had sent her home, but not to worry because her colleague Severus was to see her home safely.”

She had gripped on to the kitchen counter for support. “I see,” she whispered.

“Let’s go play!” he said to the children. “Mummy left Daddy a parchment this morning saying she would cook dinner tonight, so let’s let her do it.”

“Can we play brooms in the garden?” she heard Rose ask as they left the kitchen.

She was too numb to hear the reply, but she heard the back door shut.

She breathed and calmed herself before looking in the food stores. They had received their delivery from the Ministry of the week’s supplies just yesterday, so there were plenty of options. She settled on chicken and vegetable stew and a very nice looking loaf of crusty bread. The peeling and chopping of vegetables would keep her occupied as several thoughts swirled in her head. She grabbed some potatoes, carrots, and turnips and began, adding them to the simmering sauce with some chicken that had already cooked. When all the ingredients had been added, she set her wand against the pot to lower the heat and steeled herself to check on the rest of her family.

Rose was skimming the ground on her little broom while Ron had Hugo with him on his.

“I could bathe them before dinner?” she suggested.

He ignored her. “Let’s go in for a bath,” he said.

“Come on, come with Mummy,” she said. Rose dutifully put her broom in the corner and walked over. Ron deposited Hugo in her arms and then flew off without looking back, zooming over the trees, too fast. “Be careful,” she muttered.

She had a massive lump in her gut, dreading what was to come. She played her part at bath time with little splashes and gentle soap. She helped Rose whilst Rose helped Hugo; his sister had been a little mummy since he was born. _She will love this new one even if I am ruining her life in the interim._

After enough play time, she hoisted them out, dried them off and helped them into pajamas.

“Are you hungry? There is a lovely dinner.”

Neither seemed terribly interested, but they would enjoy the bread if nothing else. She was fairly certain there had been a jar of applesauce in this week’s basket as well. She carried Hugo and held Rose’s hand as they descended the stairs. Ron was back at the kitchen table this time with a glass of fire whiskey.

She put the children in their seats and dished up the meal, sending the plates over slowly through the air with her wand. Ron intercepted them and made sure Rose and Hugo were settled before he took his own. He ignored her bowl, which was still suspended over the table when she joined the family and passed out milk in age appropriate cups.

Eating dinner together was a rare occurrence because of the opposite shifts they worked, but when they did sit down to a meal, she and Ron had rarely had a hard time chatting. This dinner was filled with awkward silence. She should have been too tense to eat, but she was starving. She ate every bite and then scraped the sides with her bread crust. Hugo had only eaten a few bites of the stew, but had loved the bread and applesauce as predicted. She finished his bowl as well, earning a rather hostile side-eye from Ron.

“Dishes or bedtime?” she asked him lightly. He again said nothing but started hoisting Hugo from his little strapped seat.

“Night, Lovies,” she said and kissed both thoroughly before she reversed the chain of dishes this time from table to sink of hot, soapy water. She cleaned them, washed out the pot, stored the leftovers, wiped down the counter and then swept and did a quick mop of the floor. She put on a kettle, and was just grabbing two cups when Ron emerged from the bedrooms. He slumped back to his chair at the table. She poured the tea and then carried the mugs over while levitating the milk jug. She let him pour first.

“As much as you think I was a terrible husband,” he began.

“Ron, of course I don’t…”

“Let me finish,” he said with pure hostility. She shut her mouth. “As much as you think I was everything wrong with this marriage, I was NEVER unfaithful to you.”

“You never slept with anyone else,” she said quietly.

“NEVER.”

“But faithful…that’s something different entirely. I loved you, Ronald. I have loved you since I was fifteen, before, probably. You loved me once, too, but you haven’t in a long, long time. I was faithful to you for years. For years when you could hardly be bothered to even consider me as someone other than a roommate.”

“You don’t know how I feel!” He was starting to tear up. “Are you sleeping with Snape?”

“Yes,” she said quietly. He flinched.

“For how long?”

“Since yesterday.”

He put his head in his hands.

“I’m sorry, Ron. It wasn’t the right way to do this, and you didn’t deserve for it all to happen this way.”

“But you’re not sorry for throwing yourself at the greasy…”

“Stop. I won’t hear it.”

“You don’t have a choice. You fucked Snape, Hermione. SNAPE!”

“He’s been my closest friend for years. It’s not like I had some teacher fetish and…”

“NO, you don’t get to try to play this off.”

“I’m not trying to play anything off. What I did was disrespectful to you, and I am sorry about that. It doesn’t change the fact that I am not going to stay in this marriage.”

“So, what is that, then? You move out? You leave me with the kids? Because you are NOT taking them.”

“Of course not! You are the best father, Ronald. I would never even suggest…”

“So what is it then?”

“I am planning on buying a flat. I thought we could trade off weeks here. The kids stay in their home, and we move in and out. I won’t give them up,” she said with a steely edge for the first time in the conversation.

He shook his head sadly.

“I thought we could perhaps share the flat as well, since only one would need it at a time.”

That caused him to snap his head back finally with a hint of his usual spirit. “Cheers, no. I’m not moving in and out of your oily love shack.”

“Oh, Ronald, really!”

 “I’ll stay at the Burrow until I can find something.”

“Well…that’s bloody reasonable.”

“No one is going to believe this,” he said in a disgusted tone,

“Maybe not. Ron, I think I pushed you into marrying me, and you did it because you thought it was the right thing to do. I hope that you will find happiness. You’re still very young.”

“I’m not ready to talk about this, Hermione. If you don’t mind…”

“Of course, I’m sorry. I’ll take the couch for tonight.”

“No, you won’t,” he said wearily. “I’m not having my pregnant…wife sleep on the couch.”

He said it with such despair that she couldn’t hold off her tears.

“You deserve so much better, Ronald. I am truly sorry.”

“You’re right, I do,” he said. “Now will you please go upstairs, so I can get some sleep?”

“Yes,” she whispered. She moved to take his teacup to the sink.

“I can wash my own bloody CUP!”

“Sorry,” she said and headed for the stairs.

She washed her face and teeth and put on her pajamas. She should have been up all night feeling awful, but she fell asleep immediately and stayed asleep until she woke up to her wand.

She showered quickly and dressed. She was heading down the stairs to get breakfast going before she woke the babies, as Ron was coming up.

“I’m going to start looking for flats today. I appreciate you staying on the couch, but it’s not fair, and I’m sorry.”

“Yes, Hermione,” he said wearily. “You are the one who wants this.”

“I’ll try to have something as soon as possible.”

She passed him and went in to put the water on for tea and porridge. When it was well on its way, she returned upstairs to get the children ready. Rose was first because she liked to help with Hugo. In ten minutes, they were dressed and sitting down to breakfast. As soon as Ron emerged, she took her tea and toast and prepared to leave.

“I’ll cook again tonight?” she asked lightly.

“If you like,” he said, not looking at her.

She kissed the babies but skipped him awkwardly, breaking from routine, and then rushed to enter the floo.

She spent a few minutes at work preparing, and then went to the lab where Snape and Kingsley were already waiting for her.

“We have much on the agenda, so let’s begin,” Kingsley rumbled.

“Yes, I must leave a bit early tonight though because I need to start looking for flats,” she informed them. Snape’s eyebrow shot up and a smile he couldn’t prevent emerged.

“What’s this?” Kingsley asked, seemingly annoyed at the confusion.

“Ronald and I are divorcing. I need a place to live.”


	26. Chapter Fourteen: Christmas 2007

**Chapter Fourteen**

**Christmas 2007**

 

They apparated up the hill from the Burrow, and Hermione immediately covered her face with the cashmere knitted scarf against the cold. Snape had given her a new wool cloak that morning, and she loved the way it hugged her body and swung out around her knees. He had transfigured it from one of his old frock coats, and it was the finest garment she had owned in years. It could transform back into a beautiful frock coat for walking in the Muggle streets. It was dark charcoal, lightened from its original black and set off with the dark pink scarf that had been in the box as well.

“When did you learn knitting charms?” she asked after she had taken the scarf from the box and pressed it against her cheek. It was clearly handmade.

“I didn’t, obviously. I bought the cashmere yarn and Gladys knitted it.” His co-worker at the university library reference room was crafty.

She placed a gloved hand in the crook of his arm and snuggled against his side as they descended the hill.

“We can leave early if the children become too much,” she said in a reassuring tone.

“Stop trying to appease me, Granger. I’m well-aware of what this day will entail.”

“You don’t have to behave as if you’re facing execution.”

“Hyperbole is not wit.”

“Yes, yes.” She pecked him on the cheek. “Grumpy sprite.”

“I am NOT…”

She laughed, and he rolled his eyes and then bumped her rather affectionately with his hip as they approached the door where Molly met them.

“Come in! Don’t you both look elegant!”

“Thank you, Molly, isn’t this gorgeous? Snape gave it to me this morning.”

Molly ran her hand along Hermione’s shoulder. “Severus, you have exquisite taste.”

“Yes, yes,” he mocked Hermione lightly as they entered the house through the kitchen door. Ron was standing in front of the cooker warming a bottle, and Sophie was dancing around him. In his arms was Baby Giles gnawing on the shoulder of Ron’s new Christmas jumper and peering inquisitively at Hermione and Snape.

“Happy Christmas, Ronald!” Hermione said as she was removing the cloak while moving in to kiss him on the cheek. “And Miss Sophie. And Mr. Giles.” She kissed them each, pulling Sophie into her arms.

“Christmas, ‘Mione! Snape…” Ron tried very hard to act as if Hermione’s partner was not someone he’d had a fifteen-year history with.

“Merry Christmas, Weasley.” Snape said quietly, hanging his own cloak and accepting a cup of tea from Molly.

“Where is Willow?” Hermione asked Ron.

“Up with this one most of the night. She went back to bed after presents to try to catch up before dinner.”

The rest of the crew had heard the voices, and suddenly the kitchen was filled with brothers and sisters and wives and husbands and children of all sizes. Molly presented Hermione and Snape with their jumpers. Hermione’s had another big dragon, which was generally the theme every year. Snape’s was far more sedate with just the initials of the university at one shoulder. With a flick of a wand, they had modestly replaced the jumpers they had been wearing with the new, and the group started migrating back into the sitting room. Fleur was pulling Snape by the hand trying to entice him to a game of gobstones; Hermione knew this would take very little enticement. She stayed behind with Ron and the baby.

“Why are you keeping your mother up?” she asked little Giles, who responded by laughing and grabbing one of her fat curls. “Oh, you’ve got me!”

“Teething,” Ron said. “And last week it was congestion, and the week before a runny ear.”

“That does not sound pleasant.”

“’Mione, any time you and Snape want to experience the joys of a baby, he is yours for the night. Weekend. Week.”

“We’ll let you know. How’s everything…aside from baby?” Hermione hadn’t seen the him since the summer.

“Same. Willow is busier than ever; my job hasn’t changed.”

Willow was the chair of one of the Hogwarts Alumni Association, and since she had taken over from a ghost who hardly planned anything, there were several events and fund-raisers every year. With their reparations from the Ministry from the fertility scandal, Ron and Willow had bought a larger house in Waverly, a wizard neighborhood in London with lots of young families. His life seemed even more distant from Hermione’s than it ever had.

She hadn’t thought of her imaginary life with him for months. Seeing the babies, though, always brought up a small pang that she quickly brushed off. She still wasn’t convinced she could have children anyway, and it wasn’t as if her current life was conducive to them.

Sophie ran to the sitting room to join the melee, and Hermione sat with Ron at the kitchen table watching him feed Giles his bottle. Ron looked completely natural, and it always gave her a small twinge of melancholy to see him in this context.

“Job then?” Ron prompted her.

“Overwhelming…but really good.”

“Snape working out?” he asked skeptically.

“Yes, Ron,” she said a bit tersely. She suspected they would never fully understand or accept her partnership. “Not that we see each other much at work. He’s only in the lab in the mornings, and I am either in the clinic or teaching classes.”

“But…at home?”

“Ron. It’s not different from any other…”

“I know, I know, ‘Mione. We really are trying to wrap our heads around it.”

“It been a year and a half since it all went public!”

 

Snape had put his flat on the market the Monday after he had been released from Azkaban. He moved into her room, and they started looking for a larger flat that day. They found a studio that mimicked the design of her beloved room on a larger scale.

“You won’t have a place to escape me,” she warned him as she fell in love with the front wall of windows, space large enough for two work spaces, a sofa, a kitchen table, expansive bookshelves, and a large four-poster. There was a lovely galley kitchen, twice the size as the little space in her room.

“You won’t have a place to escape me,” he retorted.

“Not ideal for having people over for dinner.”

“Do you want to have people…”

“Not really,” she answered. “I pay almost nothing for the room and…”

“When my flat sells, I’ll buy it outright. My Gringotts account is unfrozen; there is plenty for a deposit and rent until the sale.”

“I’ll be making more as a professor.”

“Granger, you don’t need to worry about money.”

“I don’t lack much; I don’t want much.”

He had taken her into his arms then, in the large empty space, and they had swayed, both occupied with their own thoughts that were possibly quite similar. They walked back to the office of the renting agent and signed the lease before heading back to the lab.

It took them two weeks of fifteen hour days and four more deceased elves before they discovered the pathology of the potion in the elves’ bodies. The elves had stopped eating the food the day of the press conference.

By mid-June, they had enough evidence to prove the tainted food had been the source of both crises. Esther Gould was arrested and the new Minister of Magic Kingsley Shacklebolt promised that she and her lackeys would be prosecuted soon.

Hermione helped Marilyn find a replacement waitress. They hired a young woman who had been close to Hermione’s age when she had started, and who had moved to Covington to escape an abusive relationship. Hermione helped her move into the room upstairs. She still ate breakfast at the café most mornings, so it wasn’t really goodbye.

Snape’s flat sold quickly, and they moved his lovely things into their studio. The light was perfect for plants, so they added some potted vines to the bookshelves, and the place started looking like a home.

Snape didn’t want to work only part-time, so he found a job in the university library for the afternoons. He maintained the reference department and rarely had to interact with students, which was probably best for all.

They were both witnesses at Esther Gould’s trial in August. They had been casual all summer in denims and t-shirts, and it felt like dress-up to put on work robes again for the trial. Snape’s hair had grown longer than she had ever seen it, and tied back, it stretched to lie between his shoulder blades. Having been shaken by his twenty-four hours without vision corrective potion, he’d had an eye exam with a Muggle optometrist after his release from Azkaban. He emerged with round, frame-less bifocals that made him look professor in his forties sexy to Hermione.

They entered the steps of the Ministry together, he in his traditional black, but more modern than his old Hogwarts uniform, and her in burgundy robes, with her hair up smartly. Reporters shouted questions, more about their relationship than about the case as they ascended the steps to the building. Hermione could picture the next day’s _Prophet_ and hoped she wouldn’t look too awful in the photos.

He was called first, and she waited in the lobby with Ron and Harry, who would be key witnesses as well. Snape emerged just before lunch recess, and the four had a rather tense meal together in the Aurors' staff room before they went back up to the floor of the Wizengamot.

Hermione was called next. She avoided looking at Gould. She was afraid she would stare her down, and she didn’t want the justices to think she had a vendetta against the woman. Of course, she did. The counsel for the Ministry took her through the time line and then carefully through all the evidence that included the work they had done that summer. After about an hour, he turned her over to defense counsel.

She was then interrogated relentlessly by Gould’s solicitor about her relationship with Snape and her conflict of interest to be providing testimony in the case. The woman suggested Hermione was covering for her boyfriend.

Snape had been forbidden to talk about his testimony, but she knew he had been treated similarly. He had been on-edge throughout lunch and after while they were waiting to be called. She maintained her calm demeanor and answered the questions honestly. Then the justices took over the questioning. They were only interested in the scientific evidence and completely ignored the inquiry into her relationship with Snape. She felt relieved when she was dismissed late that afternoon.

They said goodbye to Harry and Ron. Neither had any interest in staying for the rest of the trial and waiting for the verdict. They had done their part and wanted to be finished with this business.

They grabbed a quick dinner at a pub near their flat and then trudged home, dropping clothes as soon as they closed the door behind them and then sinking into the large bathtub they had expanded when they renovated the bathroom.

Neither spoke much; it had been such a draining day. Snape had his glasses off and a flannel over his face.

“Headache potion?” she asked quietly.

“I can fetch it.”

“Let me.” She climbed out of the tub and found the phial in the little cabinet behind the bathroom mirror. She took a swig herself before handing it to him.

“Thanks.”

“I keep seeing her pinched little face,” Hermione said finally.

Snape was still lying with his eyes covered. He made a noise of disgust.

“What was her appeal?”

Hermione was sure that he would ignore her, and there were moments of silence. Finally, though, he began to speak.

“She’s smart. She’s ambitious, she wanted my help in her department, but she was happy to let me work without interfering. I’m not sure why, but I was taken with her. Not personally—I wasn’t attracted to her,” he peeked from beneath the flannel to smirk at her.

“Yes, yes, I was a jealous idiot. Continue.”

He took the flannel off and hung it on the ledge of the tub.

“She reminded me a bit of Minerva at first. Unlike her, though, Esther tried to take over my life, especially in the early years. She helped me find the flat, she had me over for dinner many nights, she tried to marry me off to her niece…”

“Really?”

“Yes, close to the beginning.”

“I’m not sure if I want to never think of this again or if I want every detail. When was this?”

“Esther set us up at the Ministry Christmas party, the first one after I stared there. We gave it a go for a few months. She was…she is an American, your age…a little older.”

“That time…when was it? 2000? When you dropped off the face of the earth and ignored my owls?”

“I suppose.”

“What was her name? What happened?”

“Do you really want to know?” he said, and for the first time in the conversation, that challenging yet flirtatious tone that she had grown to love appeared.

“I’m not sure, but YES, I have to know.”

He had sat up in the tub and was closer to her than he had been while reclined. She sat up as well so they could face off for this.

“Lucy. She was a perfectly fine, rather smart witch. I have no idea why she didn’t run away in horror after the set-up…”

“Oh, I have some idea,” she said and palmed his cock, which was not entirely flaccid, she discovered with a giggle.

“Well…” he continued. “That was probably not the reason she stayed, but it _was_ the reason I left.”

“Yes?”

He reached between her legs and inserted two fingers inside her, and then slid his thumb around her clitoris. She pitched her head back, instantly losing the duel. His cock was rogue, but his face stayed on message.

“Why would I ever seek anything but this?” He put his other arm around her, and hoisted her onto his lap, leaving his other hand to its current occupation.

“This? What do you mean, this? Fuck, Severus,” she gasped, losing the academic tone she was trying so hard to maintain.

“This very cunt here of Hermione Jean Granger,” his tone was steady, as he removed his fingers and impaled her. She wrapped both arms around him as they adjusted to a comfortable position and then rhythm in the tub. She claimed his mouth with hers. Water was splashing out of the tub and hitting the bathroom floor in time with their movement. He unpinned her hair so her curls hit the top of the water every time she sank down on him.

“Why would I ever want anything but this?” he groaned in her ear and then lost all his steely composure as he came with a gruff roar.

She kissed his neck, running her tongue down his scar—her scar—as he recovered. He gripped her tightly in one arm and used the other to hoist them up. He carried her out of the tub and straight to the bed, both dripping, where he laid her out and put his face between her legs. He alternated between languid and insistent with his fingers and tongue again and again and again until she was begging him and trying to press his head against her, which he maneuvered around, of course.

“Snape, PLEASE!”

“Say my name.” He whispered in-between casual, lapping strokes with his tongue against her clitoris. One finger was currently swirling around inside, stirring clockwise and then counter and then lingering on her outer folds and then back in as if he could do this for hours, as if he had no real sense of time anyway.

“Severus!”

“Do you want to come, Hermione?”

“YES! Yes, Severus!”

He sped up everything, putting his whole mouth against her, adding another finger, and in seconds she had finally arrived, floating over the room in pure bliss, every nerve lit up bright and singing his name over and over. She wasn’t sure how long she stayed up there, but when she came down, he had nestled in beside her and was holding her tightly against him, protectively with one arm across her breasts and his whole leg wrapped around her hips.

“Gods, gods, gods, gods, Severus,” she whispered to him. Her back was against his front and his mouth was just at her ear.

“Did you like that, love?”

Her heart swelled. “Am I? Your love?”

“Have been for some time.”

She turned around in his arms and kissed him everywhere her mouth could reach.

They woke the next morning, clinging to each other as an owl assaulted their window. Snape disentangled himself and retrieved the post, a notice from the Hogwarts Alumni Association and the Prophet, the front page of which displayed a not terrible photo of them holding hands on their way to the Wizengamot.

The article was unnecessarily salacious, but reserved most of its copy to the dastardly Healer Gould, who was expected to be convicted that day. Hermione wasn’t confident that anything would work out so simply, but she put it out of her mind as they showered and dressed for work. She had forgotten it, and they were working diligently when Professor Lewis knocked at the door to tell them that she had indeed been convicted and sentenced to twenty years.

Hermione took a deep breath, thanked Professor Lewis for telling them, and then they resumed their tests.

It was the best summer of her life, really, and she was wistful when it came to an end and she had to begin her new responsibilities.

Professor Lewis had authorized the building of a small annex with a separate entrance where Hermione could see elves who wanted care or needed any kind of help. There was a lab in the back where Snape worked, and she rarely saw him during the mornings when he was there. She taught most of her classes in the main hall. She developed a higher order seminar that she conducted in the annex.

She usually ate lunch with Snape before he left for the library. That job ended at four, so he enrolled in basic chemistry at the Muggle university. He had a lecture class three days a week and a lab practicum the other two days. He bought a second-hand bicycle, so he could ride from one university to the other. The whole plan made Hermione wary.

“Those young Muggle women are going to take one look at you…”

“Hardly.”

“Oh, yes. I know exactly how it will go. You will be in the lab, and the professor will ask a question, and some idiot male student will give moronic answer. You will snort, offending the young sir, who will then call you to answer it yourself if you are so smart. You will give the most precise answer in about ten words, but with that voice. Immediately all knickers in hearing distance will be tucked into bags and those young Muggle women will be propping one leg on the edge of the lab table and asking you to demonstrate stirring technique with their glistening cunts in your face.”

“What would that look like? Could you show me?”

“I am not joking. Remember, sir, you are mine.”

He excelled in the lab portion, but the maths he had to do for the lecture was consuming their evenings. She had found a book in the Muggle shops called _Calculus for Dummies_ , and they were pouring through it every night while cursing the limitations of wizarding education. Through hours of work, he achieved the highest marks and was admitted to the next level for the spring.

In the Creatures lab, Snape began working on a contraceptive potion that would be safe for elves. Hermione was scared about testing it and doubtful that they could recruit willing subjects, but ten female elves signed up immediately, and when the potion showed evidence of success, Hermione had to shift her focus to reproductive concerns to keep up with demand.

 

 She glanced through the kitchen door to the dining room and saw Snape sitting next to Fleur who had foisted her youngest child, a very Veela looking eleven-month-old Marie-Louise on his lap. Ginny was seated on his other side with Lily Luna, her ten-month-old clone, on hers. Lily was reaching around her cousin to maul his nose.  He threw Hermione a look that shouted _save me_. She laughed and rose from the kitchen chair. She kissed Ron’s cheek and the top of Giles’s gingery head before joining the group in the dining room.

 Celestina Warbeck was playing in the sitting room, and Molly, surrounded by Christmas morning debris, was sitting on the sofa looking dreamily into the distance.

“Dance with me, Snape,” Hermione said as she approached the table. He looked at her as if she were out of her head. She could see him analyzing the situation. Stay with the babies or grant Hermione’s ridiculous request. He handed Fleur back her daughter and removed Lily’s paw from his nose. Hermione reached her hand to him and he took it and rose.

She led him to a far corner where only Molly could see, though she still seemed occupied in her own thoughts, and they swayed to the crooning. She rested her head on one side of his chest and clutched his hand in hers on the other side. She let out a happy sigh, and he held her closer for the rest of the song and into another before the record stopped on the player.

“The dinner then,” Molly said, still seemingly miles away.

“Let us help,” Hermione offered.

“I won’t decline it,” Molly said, and they retreated into the kitchen. They chopped and stirred and followed orders for two hours and then sat exhausted with the group and enjoyed the meal from the oyster stew, through the roast and Yorkshire pudding, and finally the treacle tart, of which Snape ate two pieces.

“Severus, Hermione, I have not heard from you regarding Hogwarts Spring Fling,” Willow called out. “I know of at least ten alumni who said they will only attend if you are there, Professor.”

“I think we have plans,” he started.

“We’ll be there,” Hermione finished for him.

“That’s wonderful! I will add your names to the official roster.

 

They bundled up and headed off in the dark for home having enjoyed the raucous day but thankful for their quiet home and another week of winter holiday from work. Her Christmas gift to him had been a laptop and a WiFi connection, and he was looking forward to conquering it. He was in his second year at Muggle uni and inching closer to a degree in chemistry.

He brought her against his side tightly again in the cold as they walked back up the hill to the apparition point. It had just started snowing.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

“For?”

“Coming with me.”

He chuckled and brushed a snowflake off her nose.

 

 


	27. Chapter Fourteen: Christmas 2007

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to the lovely and delightful SnapeBraille4TU for her help in unsticking (totally a word) this chapter.

**Chapter Thirteen**

**Christmas 2007**

 

Hermione cancelled the warming spell that had surrounded her for her six-mile run and muttered the incantation to open the door to the flat. Warm air hit her immediately, and she converted from sweaty to disgusting before she made it to the shower. She dropped her damp clothes in a heap and ran the water cool letting it coat her before she washed her body and hair and then wrapped towel around her head and a bathrobe around her person. She had rinsed out her running bra in the shower, wrung it out, and hung it up before depositing the rest of her running clothes in the hamper.

Immediately she realized she needed to pump right then, so she went to the little alcove where the charmed apparatus sat in the corner, and where she could send the milk directly to the Burrow. She sensed him behind her before she heard him.

“Happy Christmas, Snape.”

“Likewise. I’ve made breakfast.”

“ _Casablanca_ starts in ten minutes.”

“Really?” He deadpanned. They had been planning their Christmas Day viewing schedule for weeks. _It’s a Wonderful Life_ and Indian takeaway was the grand finale, and there were two films and lots of chocolate in the middle.

She finished her task and packaged the milk. She added a little note with “Happy Christmas to all! Love Mummy/Hermione” with a quickly sketched holly leaf before she put the package in the shoot and walked to her bureau to dress.

Movies were saved for Boxing Day during the Christmases of her childhood, and she had been expected to dress smartly for visiting the two sets of grandparents. Christmas at the Weasleys were new jumpers and denims, of course. Last year and this, she would spend the day in her pajamas.

Giving the children Christmas at the Burrow had been an agonizing but ultimately clear decision. It was heartbreaking for her, of course, but unquestionably the right choice for them. Molly would send pictures, and she would feel less bereft. Last Christmas had been rough. She was eight months pregnant and in real pain, physical and emotional as she thought of Rose and Hugo unwrapping their jumpers first and then their toys. She had cried on Snape’s chest and ruined _The Treasure of Sierra Madre._ But she had rallied for _Top Hat_ , and a new tradition had been born.

 

 

Hermione had found a flat that first day, a lovely studio with a large living space and a front wall of window above a Muggle café. She had saved the money she had earned for their published research, so she could afford it. Her raise would help. Ron made a good wage at his job as well. For all the problems of their marriage, money had never been one. Ron would be able to find his own flat, too, and not be stuck at the Burrow for too long.

The new Minister Shacklebolt had closed the lab at St. Mungo’s for a week while she and Snape tried to determine what had happened. The government had fallen so quickly, it hadn’t given the guilty parties much time to cover their tracks.

Esther Gould, a specialist in witches’ healthcare, was fired before Snape and Hermione arrived at the Ministry the morning after they had been sent home for the Aurors’ office. Shacklebolt gave them the task over pouring over all her reports. It became clear that the original idea to raise the birth rate by interfering with contraception had originated in the Department of Marriage and Family, which was being run by an old Umbridge lackey. Gould was claiming that she was just following orders.

Hermione and Snape centered their operation in Gould’s office, which was bigger and much nicer than Hermione’s although they were comparable in hierarchy. They cleared off her desk, and Snape brought in a chair, and they started looking at parchment after parchment. They flagged anything that referred to contraceptive potion, but everything at first looked like typical lab work product. They were about to lose hope when Snape found a memo from the Department of Marriage and Family at the Ministry.

“It’s in the food,” he muttered.

“What is?” she looked up from a binder of contraception potion test results.

“Something that counteracted the contraception. And probably killed the elves, though surely that was unintended.”

She had practically raced behind him to read over his shoulder.

“Gods, Snape,” she whispered as she read. It was a painstakingly detailed account of how to lace the food with the potion that was labeled No. 46.

 “I’ve seen that—No. 46,” Hermione went back around to Gould’s desk and started shuffling through the papers she had perused earlier. Her hands were shaking, and she was afraid she would miss the parchment she needed because she couldn’t focus. She took a moment to settle and breathe, and then continued again, one by one. She found it half-way through the stack. “Here! It’s a formula.”

She sent it through the air to him and he snagged it and brought it down to the table.

“I can’t tell by the list of ingredients. I would have to brew it.”

“And then test it…”

“The fatality among the elves gives me pause, but I suppose we could use mice.”

He went immediately to the lab to begin the brew while she stayed in Gould’s office with a more targeted search. By the end of the day, they had a potion to test and a binder full of relevant parchment.

This was enough to alert Minister Shacklebolt to warn the wizarding population away from the food supply until it could be replaced with untainted products.

The next day, they began the study by dosing ten mice with contraceptive potion and starting an equal control group. After two weeks both groups would be given food laced with No. 46 and then allowed to breed. It would take a few more weeks to determine the effects, unless, of course, the mice started dying.

 

Ron’s transfer to day shift meant they all had the same hours. Ron and Hermione placed Rose and Hugo in the nursery full time. It took a month before Rose realized something was off—Hermione and Ron always had opposite schedules, so she was used to them being at home at different times. When she finally put it together that her parents were never there on the same nights, they sat her down and tried to explain and console her. When Ron left, she cried herself to sleep in Mummy’s bed. The next morning a bit of acceptance had started to creep in. Hugo never knew any different.

The mice survived their dosing long enough to breed, and sure enough, all but one female conceived despite contraception. They stayed in the lab for sixteen hour days that week, one of Ron’s weeks with the children, and prepared the report that would be enough to convict Gould and the man in the Department of Families.

They turned the investigation to Gould’s lackeys in the lab. It was clear that she had misled the rats working for her, and that they had no idea what they were brewing and for what purpose. They filed into the office that Hermione and Snape were using for their investigation horrified and offering to resign, which were not immediately accepted.

“We will let you know,” Snape rumbled again and again is his most intimidating professor voice as each filed out.

“It could have easily been us,” Hermione said after one of their fellow rats had burst into tears. Most of them had experienced unplanned pregnancies in their own families and were horrified by the scandal.

After weeks of testing the food supply to make sure the offending potion was completely gone, they shifted their focus to the elves. They had a credible theory that No. 46 was toxic to them, but despite extensive testing, they never had conclusive proof. There was just not enough prior medical knowledge about the anatomy and physiology of the elves.

Hermione and Snape tried to keep a strictly professional persona at work, but spent most of the weeks when Ron had the children together. They alternated their time between Hermione’s flat by the river and Snape’s downtown. She liked having her own space, even though she was rarely alone in it.

Most of her neighbors were her age although she was the only mother of two with one on the way. That first summer, she noticed that they were all enamored with cycling or running, and she ran her first tentative mile along the river her second night there. It very quickly turned into a habit, and she continued after it became too cold for the Muggles until her pregnancy made it uncomfortable.

She noticed they all ran with little electronic boxes, not their phones, smaller with chords connected to them attached to little foam balls to place in each ear. She went to a Muggle shop to investigate, and came home with her own iPod. Her neighbor Emily helped her load some songs on it to listen to as she ran. She put it on a little speaker she had bought and played music in the flat while she and Snape cooked.

 _From distant star to this here bar_ __  
The me, the you, where are we now?  
Hurray the blues of everyone  
Allison!

The Pixies gave her the courage to broach a subject she had been curious about for years.

“Yeah, what about that?”

“What?” He looked up from a lovely stack of julienned carrots.

“Show off. Allison in this here bar. What was with that?”

“I’m sure I have no idea what you are talking about,” he returned to his veg prep.

“Oh, I bet you do. Alliiisonnn!” She sang. “Your not girlfriend because you’re not a bloody seventh year,” she was impressed with her impersonation, but he gave her a withering look. “The young lady with whom you rarely left the flat,” she continued. “What was that?”

“Granger, sometimes when witches and wizards are adults they have certain needs,” he said in a patronizing teacher voice.

“Thank you very much, Snape. How did you meet this adult witch...and her needs?”

“Why do you want to discuss this?” He didn’t sound entirely put out.

“Because I’m curious. Did you pay her?”

He scoffed. “I have never had to pay for it.”

“I would think not,” she sidled up behind him and put her arms around his middle. “In fact, you could charge, I think.”

He flipped her around to the opposite counter surface in the galley kitchen and held each of her wrists against the tile. She was twenty weeks pregnant, and her little belly was the only barrier between them. He whispered in her ear.

“There is a section in the back of the _Prophet_ …”

“You placed a personal ad?” she squealed, kicking herself for not scouring the pages back then.

“I did not. I answered hers.”

“Ooooooh, that’s hot.”

He hitched up her skirt and put a hand in her knickers. “Really?”

“Oh, yes. Mid-twenties witch, divorced but pregnant, seeks mid-forties wizard with long…fingers. Leaving flat not required.”

He proved he was up for the job. They ate dinner eventually.

 

On autumn nights during her weeks away from Waverly they would walk along the river hand in hand, and passers-by would beam at them.

“Your life is about to change!” One older woman called out, looking at Hermione’s belly.

“If you say so,” Snape retorted.

It was hard not to slip into fantasy; this was their child and that they would raise him or her in their little life together. Reality was looming, though, throughout the winter. Snape did not share Ron’s distaste for sex during pregnancy, and Hermione, having been denied for so long, was practically insatiable. They tried to maintain professionalism at work, but there were several close calls in the lab when she and Snape would dash, well dash and waddle, into her office and barely ward the door before going at it. Hermione could not have stories in the Prophet that would humiliate Ron.

He had been gracious beyond her wildest dreams throughout the ordeal. He had not said a word about the circumstances of their separation and quick divorce beyond that it hadn’t been his choice.

The brothers and Fleur were baffled.

Ginny was furious.

Arthur was sad.

Molly and Harry were understanding.

Harry had owled her to let her know nothing had changed between them.

Molly spent two or three nights a week at Waverly every week helping out whichever parent was currently there. She kept silent about their circumstances until one November night when the children were finally asleep. Hermione was having a bad late pregnancy day. She had been on her feet at work for hours, and her back ached. Everything ached. Molly brewed some tea and sat with her instead of flooing home immediately.

“This is so hard on you, Hermione,” she had said.

“Just a bad day, Molly. I’m alright.”

“It just seems like such an unfortunate time to be trying to do this on your own.”

“I’m not on my own. Ronald a fantastic parent, better than me. And you have been so wonderful, Molly.”

“I know he wasn’t always…kind to you, but why now? You don’t have to tell me,” she assured quickly in response to Hermione’s stricken look.

“I’m scared to tell you. You will hate me.”

“Not possible.”

Hermione breathed deeply. “I fell in love with someone.”

“Severus?”

“Yes. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to, and you’re right the timing could not have been worse…”

“You didn’t choose to be pregnant.”

They were both crying, and neither said anything else. Molly continued to be there to help and didn’t mention it again.

Hermione went into labour on February fourth, a week early, at home with the children. She flooed Ron at the Burrow, and he came through immediately with Molly for the children. He treated her through the whole birth as he had with the other two: comforting and supportive. He was thrilled and teary when Samuel Mathias, the smallest of their brood at just under half a stone, came squalling into the world with strawberry blond hair and Hermione’s features. Rose was Hermione’s twin; Hugo was Ron’s, and Sam was the equal combination of both.

Ron stayed in the family home for two weeks, and there were times that Hermione remembered what it was like on the good days to be a family and shocked herself with stray thoughts of reconciliation. But Ron quickly reverted to being annoyed with her over everything, and she missed Snape every day.

It wasn’t practical for her to be away from Sam while she was on maternity leave. After Ron left, she spent the next six weeks at home with three children under the age of five. She would floo Snape as soon as the older two were in bed, but it wasn’t the same as having companionship during the stressful postpartum time. She had marked the calendar with the date she was returning to work, and every time she entered the kitchen and saw it posted on the wall, she found herself wishing that day would arrive already.

In her darkest hours, up with an unsettled newborn and a body changed by three pregnancies and births, Hermione had the kinds of regrets mothers can’t say out loud. In the late afternoon when Rose and Hugo returned from the nursery and were bursting with stories about their day and showering their baby brother with love, Hermione felt reassured about her life.

They received a generous payment of reparation from the government. The split it without debate. Hermione put hers in a new account earmarked for the children’s future school expenses.

Mid-April finally arrived. Ron moved back in for his week. Hermione went back to her other home and work, practically tethered to the pump to meet Sam’s demands and feeling rather useless.

After her first two births, Ron hadn’t wanted sex until after the babies were weaned. Having been celibate for eight weeks while, neither she nor Snape had any desire to remain so. The situation was surreal at times with her postpartum body and absent baby. Her breasts were leaky, the basic sexual mechanics were painful at first, and she felt a stark loss that her fantasy was just that. There was no baby to wake them up. They couldn’t take him back to bed with them and cuddle him back to sleep. She was a mother, but Snape was not a father.

During her Waverly weeks, she would soak up the time with her children appreciating every dinner, bath-time, and story. Five-year-old Rose asked fifteen questions at minimum every day, and Hermione answered every one and their lengthy follow-ups. Hugo would listen intently with a furrowed brow while Sam would chatter away in his own language in the background. On Waverly Friday nights, she would extend her bed, and they would all pile in. She would read two or three extra chapters of their current book until they all passed out. In the morning, she would make a huge breakfast and plot their day off,

On her weeks away, she could stay at work as late as she wanted and then go back to their shared studio. He had sold his flat close to a year into their partnership and moved in with her in her place by the river. They had developed a shorthand over the years and could work together, cook together, sleep together as if they were one person.

 

 

The owl arrived late afternoon. Hermione and Snape were on their third film when it tapped at the window. In its claws was a small box tied with a ribbon. A photograph had been affixed to the top.

Hermione carefully untied the bow and brought the photo to her chest. Rose and Hugo were seated under the familiar Weasley tree with Sam straddled on their laps. Rose was waving Sam’s little fist, and Hugo was blowing a kiss. The mouths of the two eldest were moving in tandem, and a subtitle was added to the bottom of the photo: _Happy Christmas, Mummy!_

In the box were two slices of treacle tart. Hermione was too stuffed with chocolate and too verklempt over the photo to manage another sweet, but Snape ate his in three bites and thoroughly licked his fork clean. She settled back under his arm and tried to stop silent tears from marring the day.

“Next year let’s go to Tahiti,” he said.

She snuggled in closer and giggled against his chest.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Allison by the Pixies, fantastic to run to and to get your partner to open up about a woman who was not his girlfriend. (He was not a bloody seventh year.)
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGtnI3EPkKw


	28. Chapter Fifteen: May 2, 2048

 

**Chapter Fifteen**

**May 2, 2048**

“Are you ready?”

Hermione was seated that the round oak table they’d had since they had moved into their studio. It was twice as big as the one she’d had in her room. His kitchen table from his London flat was a narrow rectangle that had been perfect for his steel and marble galley kitchen but looked out of place in their new open space. It fit perfectly into the kitchen of this house, too.

They had found the table at a second-hand shop. Snape had insisted on repairing a few dings in the wood, but it had held up since then with the original finish. Hermione was fidgeting with the journal on her tablet, ostensibly writing up a report citing some recent lab results but too anxious about that evening to be fully engaged.

“Snape?” she called again, louder this time.

“I’m coming, woman, keep your robe on.”

“Do you need some help?” she smiled, anticipating the reaction.

“I’m sure I can dress myself!” he thundered back.

“Okay, I’m good with cravats…”

That got him around the corner.

“Just how many cravats do you think I tied over the years? Five figures? Six?”

His white cravat looked impeccable as the rest of him did. He was in deep forest green, tailored close to his body with more buttons than he had worn in years, but all immaculately fastened against the silk. His steely grey hair was pulled back behind his head with an olive velvet ribbon, and his bifocals sat high on his stately nose.

“Perfection,” she declared, clasping her hands in front of her.

“Bollocks,” he replied, but unable to hide a tiny smile.

Her own robe, very simple in the style she preferred, was a deep rust with scarlet overtones. She had a gold clip that kept her curls back. Her hair had become wilder as it greyed. She had tried to keep it under control throughout the years, but about ten years ago, she had given up the game. Her hair now reflected her inner turmoil that she confronted every day in her professional life. It worked for her.

Down the front of her robe, she wore a long, thick, gold chain that ended in a tassel made of gold, silver, pewter, platinum, and bronze. She had seen it in a rundown shop the last time she had ventured into Diagon Alley, and she couldn’t pass it up.

“Don’t we just resort to type,” he said, but his eyes were warm, and he pulled her in close to kiss her cheek. “Beautiful,” he whispered.

“Thank you,” she whispered back. “Looks as if we do,” she said, chiding herself for not recognizing their colour-scheme before he did.

“I suppose we must go.”

“I think we would be missed.”

“You would be missed. I could skip it entirely and catch up on telly and no one would be the wiser. You could bring home mine,” he said.

“Nonsense.”

She walked to the mantel and the floo box. They had been in their current house for the last fifteen years. The studio had been their home for the previous twenty-five, but the three-flights of stairs had become a problem for his knees, and buying in a wizarding neighborhood made their commute easier. All the Muggle amenities were available in the neighborhood now, anyway. Hermione might not say it out loud, but she sometimes wondered why they lived so long without a floo connection. It really was the thing.

She doused them and then put her arm around him as he stepped into the floo.

“Enough, Granger!” he said after he had leaned on her as his back leg cleared the brick ledge.

“I’m behind you,” she said out of habit as he disappeared. She gave him thirty seconds to stable himself before she followed with a whoosh. He was waiting for her and took her arm immediately as they began to walk through the Grand Foyer. He used a walking stick often in the garden and in the lab, but his pride would not allow him to take it with him here.

“Worked for Malfoy all those years,” she had said.

“Why in Merlin’s name would I emulate that tosser?”

His own stick was plain oak with a natural knob on top, and not the lacquered, jeweled affair of the senior Malfoy, but Hermione understood his point.

 

She spotted Harry close to the door of the ballroom and raised her hand in greeting. This drew the attention of the larger Weasley-Potter group, and soon the triplets were making their way to her.

Giles looked so much like his father at his age, she had to remind herself it was the son. Lily Luna could have been his sister, and Marie-Louise, who had been called Mamie her whole life, was the image of Fleur.

They had been “the babies” and then “the two-year-olds,” “five-year-olds,” “ten-year-olds,” and so on until they were about twenty-five and it seemed silly to continue to refer to them by age so they became known as “the triplets”. They had been Hermione’s special children since the Christmas when they were two and driving everyone mental during the week leading up to the holiday. Hermione was on Christmas break, and offered to spend several afternoons with them so their parents could accomplish some tasks.

She had quickly learned just why Ginny and Willow looked so exhausted all the time very quickly, but knowing that she could bundle them back up and send them home at the end of the afternoon made the chaos tenable. She volunteered to watch them on her breaks and occasionally when a childcare emergency arose.

Snape tended to give them a wide-berth although favorite goodies often appeared in the kitchen in advance of their arrival, and when they were older, he didn’t hesitate to use them as free garden labour in the allotment he maintained their whole tenure in the studio flat.

“Aunt ‘Mione, you look so pretty,” Mamie gasped as they embraced.

“Snape, you look nice as well,” Lily Luna said, which was met with a snort.

By the time they were ten, Hermione had organized her Christmas care program with scheduled activities that reminded her of the Christmases of her childhood. The ten-year-olds were wrapped in long aprons she had nicked absentmindedly from the café years ago and rolling out ginger biscuits that they planned to package and give as gifts to the Burrow horde.

“A bit thick to cut there, Giles. Roll it out a smidge more.” Giles had silently complied. He tended to be drowned out by his cousins.

“Where is Snape?” Mamie had asked.

“He’s at the library and then running some errands.”

“We are too loud for him,” Lily Luna said.

Hermione snorted. “He does like the quiet,” she said. “But he likes you, too.”

“Why don’t you marry him?” Mamie asked sweetly.

“Mum says she is already married to her job,” Lily answered.

“Oh, really?” Hermione tried to hold back laughter.

“Don’t you want a baby?” Mamie followed up.

“I have you three and your siblings and cousins. That is a lot of babies to love.”

“And you work _all_ the time,” Lily added.

Hermione was going to have a talk with Ginny very soon.

“Listen, you can be married and have babies and a job. Giles mum does it.” Willow had overseen improvements to Hogwarts that had to be witnessed to be believed. All the spaces had been rebuilt and expanded where necessary in anticipation of the largest class they had ever had that was on the way in less than a year.

“She works while we’re at school,” Giles said.

“Yes, that’s how mums who work do it,” Hermione said, realizing she was oversimplifying the situation.

“You don’t want a wedding?” Mamie was such a little romantic.

“They had a party,” Giles offered. It was true. Molly had thrown Hermione and Snape a huge bash to celebrate Snape’s completion of the chemistry program and her own completion of psychology at Muggle university. The Burrow gang had all worn goofy mortarboards and Muggle academic robes. It had been a fantastic time.

“That is very true. We had the party. Weddings are lovely, and if you have one, I will be there to celebrate with you, but you don’t need a wedding to love someone.”

 

Neither Snape nor Hermione ever mentioned marriage or children, and Hermione shut the door on the possibility. They very rarely expressed their affection for each other in words, and except in bed (or in the shower or tub, or against the bookshelves or kitchen table in their sprightly youth), they almost never called each other by their given names. And yet they were unquestionably devoted to each other. He was the cornerstone of her life.

On the computers and tablets they bought throughout the years for working at home, she couldn’t resist keeping up with the Felton-Mitchells. Hermione could never find much about the family. Jonathan had a small biographical paragraph on the website of the university where he taught. They had ended up with five children after all; Edmond had been born weeks after Hermione had left their employ, and Anne had followed two years later.  For years, Hermione couldn’t find a reference to Rachael apart from being Jonathan’s wife. Then in 2018, when the twins Harry and James were in their early twenties, Rachael published a book of essays on poetry and motherhood. Hermione ordered one online with shaking hands.

When it arrived two days later, Hermione read the thin volume in one sitting, catching up with the family and enjoying Rachael’s literary analysis as well. She was tempted to reach out, but there was so much to explain, so much to alter, she decided to close the book and place it on the shelf.

 

The doors of the ballroom opened, and the triplets went back to find their spouses and the rest of the family as the group piled in.

In honour of the fiftieth anniversary of the Great War, the Ministry was giving them—Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Snape—new Orders of Merlin, and all first class this time. The boys, now in their late sixties (as Hermione was, too), for their work in the office of Auror, and for the many side-projects they had taken on over the years, including working with Hermione and Snape whose award was for years of service in research and protection of elves— _higher order creatures_ being an outdated term.

Hermione and Snape had worked for years in the lab and clinic and still did. They had never published any of their research. It was too risky, and besides being renown in the human world had never been a goal. She had limited her teaching to the treatment and study of elves, which was one upper-level class a term. She used the extra time to quietly work on expansion of rights and protections for her population, starting in the office of Auror and moving through the Ministry bureaucracy.  She vowed to continue to be a thorn in the side of the Ministry for as long as she needed to be, starting with the old Shacklebolt government, which, despite good intentions, had moved predictably slowly to reform.

 

They found their table at the front of the hall. She squeezed his hand as she remembered the last time they were seated together at one of these events, forty-nine years ago. Ron was seated beside her with Harry to his right. She waved to Ginny and Willow across the table. She saw the boys…the men fairly often and talked to them via enchanted parchment almost every work day, but she hadn’t seen them in their finest for a while. They both looked much younger than their age; both still had active careers.

Ron had three grandchildren and Harry seven. For the last ten years, Hermione had spent every holiday at the Burrow with a baby on her lap, ostensibly to give the young parents a break and a rare chance to enjoy a meal uninterrupted, but really because she loved to hold the babies close and smell their heads. They would grasp her finger, or more typically, one of her curls, with their chubby hands, and she would hold them close to herself.

Still, she was usually happy to hand them back at the end of the gathering, looking forward to home with Snape and their peaceful existence.

Harry and Ron were bantering back and forth about Harry’s speech and how Ron had once again left it to someone else.

“I wrote you some lines,” Harry said, putting on his reading glasses and showing his notes to his side-kick.

“’Of course, I owe this award chiefly to my friend and mentor, Harry Potter’,” Ron read. “Let me just edit this a bit. ‘I have achieved this award despite be shackled to the side of one Harry…’”

“Shackled? Oi!” Harry laughed.

Hermione realized she had a silly grin. Snape looked long-suffering.

 

Hermione had written their speech, of course. After Snape had received his medal, he carefully walked down the steps and sat again. He wasn’t sure if he could stand for her whole speech. He returned to his chair the front table. He had saved his large serving of double-fudge gateau to enjoy while he listened to his Hermione.

“Can trust ever truly be repaired after being destroyed so casually, so cynically, during the events of 2006?” She was off to a roaring start. She continued with the tragedy of unintended consequences and what that had meant for her population and then segued to a call for action.

“While elves have won certain rights through years of struggle and more obstacles that our society should have allowed, now is not the time for complacency. We are not truly free or enlightened when our brothers and sisters: giants, goblins, centaurs, trolls, and others too numerous to mention are not fully recognized members of our society with the complete battery of rights we enjoy.”

She looked at him with his huge piece of cake and a twinkle in his eye directed straight at her.

“Give them hell,” he mouthed and his mouth settled into a tiny smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end, but not the end end.


	29. Chapter Fifteen: May 2, 2048

**Chapter Fifteen**

**May 2, 2048**

“Are you ready?”

Snape sounded on the verge of impatience. He had been waiting for a few minutes in the sitting room, but Hermione wanted to be perfect.

She had bought a new deep blue silk robe for the occasion. It fit close to her body with a flattering V-neckline and sleeves that ended with flutes at her hands. She wore a long silver-chained necklace with a globe at the end made of gold, bronze, platinum, and pewter. She had found it in a small shop the last time she had visited Diagon Alley.

She had straightened her hair, still mostly brown but now streaked with silver, and then had secured it in a twist on the back of her head. Sam called it her “Mum is serious now,” look.

She put some gloss on her lips as a final touch and swiveled to the mirror to check her reflection from all sides. _Good as it will be_ , she decided, and grabbed her clutch with lipstick and wand.

“Beautiful,” Snape declared as she entered.

“Worth the wait?”

“Don’t press it.” He helped her with her cloak and steadied himself against her. He had a walking stick he used in the garden and in the lab, but he was too proud to bring it along tonight.

He was dressed in his rather close-fitted traditional black with more buttons than she had seen on him in years.

“Don’t you look lovely,” she said with a smile as she straightened his cravat.

“Don’t hover, woman, we should have left ten minutes ago.”

“Yes, yes,” she said as they approached the floo and left, her first and him close behind.

The Grand Foyer was filled with people and it took her a moment to find their party. Rose’s wild curls appeared in the corner of the room. Snape leaned on Hermione’s arm as they made their way over.

Ron was already there with his wife Jillian. Their two children, Jeffrey and Matthew, both in their late twenties stood by their wives. Sam and his wife Elinor broke away from the group to meet them.

“Mum, Snape!” Sam called out as if he hadn’t seen them earlier that day. Still, they weren’t quite so dressed up at the lab. Sam had started as a lowly rat but had worked his way up to analyst with an office close to hers. His department was magical maladies, and Snape supervised some of his research.

Rose turned her head at her brother’s voice. They had both been quite busy lately, and Hermione hadn’t seen her since Easter. They talked, though, every day via enchanted parchment.

“Mum!” Rose said and the two women embraced.

“You look so lovely, Rosie,” Hermione said, and her daughter snorted. But she did look lovely, albeit in a wood nymph sort of way. Rose’s curls were still brown with deep red highlights. She had some spring vines woven in to match her rather Greek inspired white robe.

“Mum, you look beautiful.” Rose ran her hand down Hermione’s blue robe. “Very nice,” she said with a little smile.

Snape took Hermione’s hand gently to get her attention and then pointed her toward the corner where witches and wizards with portkeys were arriving. There, in a small crowd, was Hugo.

Hermione gasped, and Rose squealed and darted for him with the rest of the group following her. Hermione saw Sam and Snape exchange a glance.

“Did you know about this?” she asked him quietly.

“I may have had an inkling.”

“Secretive, Snape,” she scolded.

“It’s a good surprise, I think. And not so secret.” Snape glanced at his co-conspirator who was rushing behind his sister to greet their brother.

Hugo worked in Colorado cultivating rare plants that grew in the foothills of the Rockies. The outcroppings had proven useful in many types of potions, and demand had risen sharply in the last few years. He rarely made it back to the UK.

Ron walked behind her close enough to speak quietly in her ear. “Did you know Hugo…”

“I had no idea.”

Ron put his arm around her and squeezed gently. “I love it when they’re all here.”

“I know. It’s the greatest.”

 

Ron never made any pronouncements banning the children from spending time with Snape, but Hermione was hesitant to introduce more change into their lives. Two years into their custody arrangement, Ron met Jillian and married her soon after, but he continued to spend every other week with his children at Waverly. They had paid off the mortgage, which allowed both to live comfortably in their respective flats. The summer before Sam’s first year, Hermione and Ron met for tea to discuss selling the house. He and Jillian wanted to start a family and have their own house, and Hermione couldn’t blame him.

Snape and Hermione had been happy to live in her studio by the river on her weeks without children since the divorce. It was Snape’s full-time home, and it took on a rather Snapey aesthetic that made Hermione smile. The flat wasn’t an appropriate space for having the children stay on school breaks, though. They sold it for triple what she had paid for it in 2006 and bought a three-bedroom house in Harry and Ginny’s neighborhood.

She introduced the children to Snape around the time Rose entered Hogwarts. He never pushed them to have a relationship with him. The children didn’t know what to make of him at first—she would have him over for dinner on some week nights, and he would cook elaborate meals they weren’t quite sure they wanted. Slowly, though, he became a part of the family on her weeks.

The older two were sorted into Ravenclaw at Hogwarts. Both were intelligent and rather introverted, so Snape was a kindred spirit, if unacknowledged. Sam was the born Gryffindor, and his sorting was no surprise, either. He had engaged Snape from the first dinner asking him a series of questions about his background and career that the man gamely answered before Hermione rescued him.

Sam came home bursting with news and opinions his first Christmas break. He was still young for eleven. Hugo had just turned thirteen, and Rose was fifteen.

Hermione had taken the two weeks off work so she could spend every moment with them that they weren’t with their father or at the Burrow. She had decided years ago to give them the Muggle Christmases of her childhood, so there was pantomime, and lots of chocolate, films, and some homemade biscuits as well. They were sitting around the table with their tea, watching her roll them out, as Sam held court.

“Snape is a BIG deal, at school, you know. You, and Dad, and Uncle Harry are, too, of course, but Snape is everywhere.”

“He did just as much as we did during the war,” she said lightly. She didn’t particularly relish a rehashing of those events over ginger snaps.

“Why do Dad and Uncle George call Snape the Greasy Git?” Sam continued. Rose gave him a withering look over her mug, and Hugo looked at Hermione, clearly interested in her answer.

 _Because your father and uncle are twelve._ “Snape couldn’t show his cards at all during that time, and he was a naturally strict teacher, anyway.”

“How did you and Daddy ever…work?” Rose said, obviously trying to choose her words carefully.

“I loved your dad. I still love him, you know, as such an important part of my life, of our lives. But I was _in_ love with him. I adored him,” she said as she wiped her hands on her apron and poured herself a cup. She joined them at the table.

 _“_ So what happened?” Rose said softly.

“They found people better for them,” Sam said as if his sister was not very bright.

“Wanker,” Hugo muttered.

“Enough, Sam…Hugo.” Hermione scolded them. The familiar guilt over her divorce rose to the surface once more.

“You ended up with your _teacher_ ,” Rose said with a visible shudder.

Hermione sighed. “He hadn’t been my teacher for years before…” she decided not to try to justify her relationship to her children. “I’m sorry Dad and I couldn’t make it work. I know it would make you happy if we could all be together.”

“It’s not even that,” Rose said.  “What made you not love him like that anymore? I can’t remember.”

 _“_ It wasn’t one thing, Rosie. We fought too much, and our work schedules were very good for you, but we didn’t spend much time together. It was many little things.”

“And then Sam…” Hugo said out of the corner of his mouth. Rose whacked him lightly on the head.

“Joking,” Hugo said. The whole exchange flew over Sam’s little head anyway.

“Are you ever going to marry Snape?” Rose asked as she stacked the cooled biscuits.

Hermione and Snape had never discussed it. They split expenses without conflict and kept their finances separate. There was an unstated agreement between them that they were partners for life, but they did not spend time reassuring each other of their feelings.

“I doubt it. We’re happy with the way things are.”

“You won’t have more children?” Sam asked. Ron and Jillian had told the children the night before that they were expecting their first child together that summer.

“No, Sam. I am quite happy with those I have. Not to say that your father isn’t,” she quickly amended.

“Snape doesn’t want children of his own?” Rose pressed further.

“He is quite set in his ways. But he likes having you around,” she assured them.

“We like Snape,” Sam declared for the group earning him a sneer from his sister and eyeroll and hurmph combination from his brother.

“It’s alright,” Hermione said to all of them. The children did like Snape. He made it policy to stay out of their business unless they asked him directly for his opinion, and even then he often deferred to Hermione. He tooled around the new garden with them—all three were interested in plants and potions. He helped them with their schoolwork if they owled him. He tried to stay out of their way unless they initiated contact.

The responsibilities of her career and Snape’s left little time to ponder her life choices. She was happy; he was happy; the children were healthy and reasonably content, if not thrilled with their circumstance of being shuffled between Dad’s place and his new family, and Mum’s with her unique partner.

She did occasionally think of Rachael Felton-Mitchell and speculate about what her life was like now. She would have loved to meet for tea and to see for herself. Was she happy? Did she have any regrets?

She didn’t have many herself. Her treatment of Ron at the end of their marriage was unkind, and it plagued her sometimes. There was nothing she could do to make up for it, so she devoted herself to improve and instill the lesson in her children.

As they grew and finished at Hogwarts and entered university, all three in research fields, the challenges of their day to day lives as children from a split family faded. Not too long into their arrangement, Hermione had been welcomed back to the Burrow for the holidays, and assured that Snape was expected as well. She started spending more time with Ron. Jillian was sporty and cute, and he obviously adored her. Hermione wasn’t sure if he had truly forgiven her, but he certainly acted like it. They avoided difficult subjects and were lucky that the few scrapes the children found themselves in were minor and easily solved.

Neither Rose nor Hugo had settled down with a partner. Hermione had met a few of Rose’s boyfriends over the years; Hugo was quite discreet about his own romances.

Elinor was a lovely woman, and she and Sam had given Hermione her only grandchild, Katherine. It was through Katie that Hermione had a glimpse of what Snape could have been like as a father. He adored the little girl, and the two were inseparable when Katie spent the weekend with Nana and Snape.

 

Hermione and Ron waited for Rose to detach herself from Hugo before they surrounded him in a three-person embrace. Hermione let go finally and held her son at arms’ length so she could look at him. He was the picture of his father in his early forties if Ron had ever worn his hair long. In recent pictures, Hugo’s red mane had been as wild as his sister’s but tonight for the occasion, he had it tied back.

“What a surprise!” Ron said, as Hugo was handed over to Sam for a bear hug.

“I couldn’t miss it, could I?” Hugo said quietly, and Hermione glanced at Rose, whose face was lit up with joy.

Rose was the woman of the hour. She was the only honoree this year with the Order of Merlin, First Class for her work in the field of research, treatment, and advocacy of elves.

She had started her university study in potions but quickly realized that magical creatures with a research bent was where she belonged. After she completed the program, she had decided to stay on and to begin work with the population of elves associated with the university.

She had consulted Hermione often throughout the process, and Hermione had made frequent visits, working alongside her daughter. Snape had collaborated with her as well, taking off afternoons as he neared retirement at St. Mungo’s to help coordinate Rose’s lab work. The project was fundamentally hers and the most important part of her life.

The doors to the ballroom opened and the crowd started making their way in. The front table was reserved for them. Rose was at the center with her parents on either side of her. The dinner was unmemorable as Ministry food tended to be. Hermione was too excited to eat much anyway and willingly turned her plate of double chocolate gateau over to Snape after one bite.

The current Minister of Magic, a typically uninspiring man, took to the dais and began to list Rose’s accomplishments, spending too long on her parents being two-thirds of the Golden Trio. There were so many more important details.

He finally invited Rose to take the stage. She kissed Hermione and then Ron. She approached the stage from the left, and when she passed Snape’s chair she put a hand on his shoulder, which he reached up and brushed before she continued her trip to the dais.

Hermione was already fighting tears as she watched the Minister fasten the medal around Rose’s neck. Snape wordlessly unbuttoned three buttons on his coat, reached in for a handkerchief and handed it to her.

Rose spoke of her education at Hogwarts and the university, and how being served by the elves had made her interested in their well-being. She thanked her father, step-mother, and bothers for their love and support. Hermione had given up the fight and just let the silent tears flow against the huge grin on her face.

“But it is my mother, Hermione Granger, who has been and is my greatest role model. My mother was warrior as a teenager and is the most intellectually curious person I’ve ever known. I wondered as a child how I would ever live up to what I imagined were her expectations of me. I could never be as brave or as brilliant as she is. But I found that she didn’t ever expect me or my brothers to be her, she and my darling father as well, only ever expected us to be kind, to discover our own talents, and to use them to make our society better. And that’s what I strive to do every day.”

Snape had clutched Hermione’s left hand, and Ron took her right. She squeezed them both and smiled even wider.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end end.


End file.
